Lost But Found
by jhoom
Summary: A strange object appears in Earth's orbit. When Trunks and Bra go to investigate, Bra finds herself lost in an eerily familiar but completely different world - Capsule Corp, ten years before she's born. Can Bra make it back without changing things?
1. Prologue: Just Another Day

**AN: **I'm not currently the "continuous story" kind of girl. I've been working mostly on one-shots (that turn into two- or three-shots without my actual intension for them to be so) or disjointed telling of a not quite cohesive story. Since I am striving towards writing an actual, original work of some length, I felt it was time to actually write a multi-chapter fic. With that in mind, please let me know how you feel about the story and character development over the coming chapters. Thanks and enjoy.

I've had this idea rattling around inside my head for a while now. I am for some reason obsessed with time travel as an element in fanfiction, and even though it's been done to death, I couldn't help myself. As for my choice in focusing on Bra, I feel that the girl doesn't get enough attention. She's barely in DBZ and GT, whereas Trunks is featured quite prominently in both. Other characters will make occasional appearances, but the focus will be on Bra and her family.

Full summary: A strange object appears in Earth's orbit. When Trunks and Bra go to investigate, Bra finds herself lost in an eerily familiar but completely different world - Capsule Corp, five years before she's born. Can Bra make her it back and save her family without disrupting the timeline?

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><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Prologue: Just Another Day**

The alarm didn't go off today. That was a bad omen. An impossibly bizarre omen considering the amount of power surging through the Compound at any given moment and the sheer number of redundancies integrated into every electronic system, all monitored by a central station but looped through back-ups to insure stability… Well, it was enough to give even a girl genius like Bra a headache and no desire to investigate _why_ she woke up at 9:07 instead of the respectable 6:25 she'd planned on. Which left her, of course, with less than an hour to shower, get dressed, do her make-up and hair, and get to work. Breakfast looked like a cookie and a swig of coffee in the car. Classy.

Scratch that. It was a really fucking terrible omen.

She should've just called in sick.

Bra wasn't blessed with the well-timed internal clock that her marked her father's sleeping habits. You could set a watch to that man's schedule. But no. Bra was blessed with her mother's inability to keep track of more than five minutes without a day planner.

She cursed her mother all the way to the bathroom, pajamas flying in her mad fury to make up for lost time, and nearly shrieked as the cold water hit her. No time to wait for it to warm up, but at least she was definitely awake now.

9:33 comes and goes as she steps out of the shower, forcing her ki to blow her hair into a dry (but clean!) mess. And of course, no time to style it. She'd be lucky if she got to do her mascara. Lovely. Because looking like you just rolled out of bed is a sure fire way to impress your staff.

It wasn't until she rushed past her secretary's desk towards the Board Room that she finally hit a stroke of luck. Two donuts left. "Mmm," she mumbled, mouth full of doughy goodness as she nearly inhaled the pastries. "Thank Dende for the little things."

The smile didn't quite make it the first five steps into the Shareholder's Meeting. Talk about a buzz kill.

Luckily, when you're important enough, people will wait.

Not that this saved her from an annoyed look from the Board or an eye roll from her brother. But at least no one was dumb enough to _say _something. Poorly concealed scorch marks on the walls and rumors buzzing about the wild tempers of the Briefs took care of that.

The last of the Board Members had just barely left the room when the nagging started. "Do I need to pick you up for work now?"

Okay. _Of course_ Trunks would say something. Never mind the thousands of times she'd had to wait for him. The _one_ time she's late (not counting the previous week when she missed a dinner with some investors because of a date – but the guy was cute enough that she felt it warranted as an excuse), and he's dripping with condensation and sarcasm.

"Shut up," she sneered. Spot on impression of her dad, by the way. Not that it worked on Trunks like it did on those less accustomed to Vegeta, but still. Very impressive. "My alarm didn't go off."

Trunks snorted as he flipped through some papers. "Bullshit," came his clipped reply as he stuffed the forms into a folder and handed it to his nervous looking assistant. For some reason he always picked the mousy ones who were two seconds away from either bursting into tears or having a heart attack.

"It's true," she muttered. "You don't have to be a dick about it."

"Bra, as your older brother, it's my job to be an absolute dick about everything."

"Like I hadn't noticed." Unfortunately, this could go on forever. Verbal sparring matches were second nature to anyone who spent a week in the Capsule Corps Home Compound. Or had to deal with their parents. So she conceded and decided to change the subject. "What's on the agenda for today?"

"Aside from the _preliminary_ meeting with Mom and the engineers, which you missed, before the actual meeting we just had," he smiled when she stuck her tongue out at him, "we have to visit the Bio-Division to check on their progress with the new Genome Project. We have to submit the blue prints for the new jets to the patent office then pick a team to handle development. One of us has to deal with the press about the accident at the Tokyo plant last week. I already took the liberty of telling Mom you'd deal with it. We've got a late lunch with GLC Executives to discuss the buy-out. After that, we're going to need to-"

"Mr. Briefs…?"

Twin pairs of blue eyes snapped to the tiny girl at the door. That poor assistant looked terrified to be interrupting (no doubt she'd done it to Vegeta and been told where to shove it and exactly how to do so), but she slowly edged her way in. She nearly tripped over her own feet as she held out a red folder labeled "CLASSIFIED." When neither of the executives bit her head off, she took a deep breath and seemed to gain some confidence. "These are just in from the Astronomy Department."

Her voice wasn't very commanding, but Bura thought she might have potential. If she ever got over being terrified of her own shadow.

"Thank you, Gloria," Trunks said with his most charming smile that undermined the dismissive tone and body language.

As the woman nearly fled in terror, Bra gave her brother an appreciative look. He definitely came from royalty. Hell, he'd probably make a half-decent Saiyan Prince if their father would ever relinquish the title.

"Astronomy Department's Mom's. Why would they forward you anything?"

Her brother pulled out his glasses and perused the star charts. He handed a couple to his sister as his attention turned to a print-out of coordinates. "Any unusual activity in the region is automatically sent to me," he muttered. "Last two people to attack Earth came from space."

She flipped through a series of images that didn't mean much to her. Something that was either a lens flare or a shooting star was in all the pictures, but other than that she wasn't sure why Trunks cared. Space had never held much interest for Bra. Everything and everyone she cared about were on Earth. Even her father's past and her brother's brief escapade with Goku and Pan hadn't done much to shift her focus from the lovely mudball of a planet she called home. It wasn't until she looked at the timestamps and the changing vectors that she frowned in realization.

"This is heading to Earth."

"Looks that way." His eyes were rapidly moving across the pages. "Probably going to land within the next few hours. Couple miles south of here, maybe on an island if we're lucky."

"Do you think it's... ?"

"I don't currently think anything. Could be a comet. Could be a probe. Could be a ship. Could be a person. Hell, it could be the telescope's alignment is fucked up and is just recording a satellite falling out of orbit." He threw the papers on the conference table and stuck his hands in his pocket. The crease in his brow almost reminded her of their father, but the glasses made the comparison almost comical.

"So… We check it out?"

Trunks was so deep in thought he didn't seem to hear her. She was about to ask again, when he lifted his gaze to met hers. "Guess so."

She smirked. "I'll tell Gloria to cancel _everything_."


	2. Chapter 1: Trial By Fire

**AN:** First of all, apologies for the long delay between the prologue and this chapter. I hadn't anticipated it being this long, but oh well, damage done. This chapter was something of a challenge because it's the part of the story I had previously thought the least about. The rest of the story I have more of a fuller idea about, so the subsequent chapters shouldn't have such a huge delay between them (knock on wood). Enjoy.

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><p><strong>Lost but Found<strong>

**Chapter 1**: **Trial by Fire**

Trunks Briefs is a terrible driver.

Not that he wasn't technically _proficient_ at it. But he took after their mother in this respect. He wasn't satisfied with waiting until it was his turn to do anything, nor did he find it acceptable to stop for turning cars or traffic lights or those pesky pedestrians. So he would zoom in and out of traffic often within inches of the nearby cars.

It apparently wasn't a successful trip if you hadn't given your passenger a heart attack.

Bra was sure the only reason he'd never been in an accident was because of his Saiyan reflexes. Then again, Bulma's driving was quite similar and _she'd_ never gotten so much as a ticket. Honestly, life wasn't fair.

Luckily they were taking the jet. Less air traffic meant less times Bra had to clutch the armrests for dear life. They didn't talk much as they headed out of the city. Normally the two of them got along just fine, but Trunks had been on edge since they'd left Capsule Corps. He'd been in such a hurry he wouldn't even give her time to call their mom and let her know what they were doing, and he hadn't said so much as five words together since they boarded.

But while Trunks was perfectly content to worry and brood, Bra wasn't. The way she saw it, it was probably nothing. Just some boring lump of rock that would probably burn up the atmosphere and leave a basketball-sized whole in some godforsaken island. IF it was someone wanting to fight, between the two of them, they could take care of it. Bra might not look like much compared to her brother, but she wasn't exactly a lightweight. She could handle herself (and depending on how dirty she was willing to play, she could easily take down Trunks in a spar). And IF the two of them couldn't handle it, there was always Vegeta.

She was slouched in the passenger seat, feet sprawled out towards the door. She tapped idly at her phone, texting Pan and checking her email in between glances at her brother's determined scowl. Maybe it was a little naive to think that daddy would always be there to take care of things. It was just... daddy was always there to take care of things. She knew Goku was stronger, but he'd disappeared years ago. And the idea of Vegeta disappearing just seemed absurd to her.

"How much longer?" she asked. Even her phone couldn't save her from boredom - she'd done everything short of check the weather, and she was sorely tempted to do that next.

"Maybe another half hour."

Bra sighed and sank further down into her chair. "We should have at least brought Goten or Pan or somebody with us."

"No time. We'll get there just after whatever it is crash lands."

"Greeeat." Her fingers twitched idly around her phone. "It would've been faster if we'd just _flown_ there."

"All the equipment's on the jet. And it still hasn't even _landed_. What do you want to do, sit around and stare at the sky for a couple hours?"

"Wouldn't be any less boring than this," she mumbled.

"Bra, stop whining."

"Trunks, have you always been such a stick in the mud?"

"Yes," came his immediate, disinterested response. He spared her a side glance before rolling his eyes. "Bra, just because I don't want to make an effort to entertain you right now like I did when you were _five_ doesn't mean I'm a 'stick in the mud.'"

"Fine," she agreed. It was a pretty small concession given the amount she'd heard of him getting into trouble when he was a kid. The cherry bombs in toilets and BB gun accidents that plagued most parents of young boys were laughably tame in comparison to Trunks' and Goten's escapades. Pretty much all the stories ended with something - a bone, a car, a section of Capsule Corps - being broken and Trunks' standard, _"And then Dad beat the crap out of me and I never did it again." _ Then he'd start his next story which would in fact prove that he _did_ do it again. "But just because _in general_ you're not completely boring, doesn't mean you couldn't stand to lighten up a little _right now_."

"_Fine_, Bra, what would _you_ like to talk about?"

She smiled in triumph, but her expression soon settled into a slight frown. _"Nothing, Trunks. I was just being annoying. I didn't think you'd actually give in - way to put me on the spot."_ Instead she said the first thing that popped into her head, "Why are you so worried about this thing?"

He still wasn't really paying much attention to her, for once focused on driving. "I'm not."

"Well, I figured it wasn't anything _big_. I mean, it's not like you guys ever bring me to this sort of thing if it's actually... life-threatening."

"I don't know if it's 'big' or not."

She sat up, her back cracking at the suddenness of the movement. "Then why bring _me_?" Bra was perfectly aware that she was yelling. It wasn't concern that moved her, though, but a deep-felt surprise. She had grown up being over-protected by everyone around her, despite her being a Saiyan. Even once she reached Super Saiyan status, she was kept on the sidelines while the boys and even occasionally Pan got to have all the fun.

"Seriously, calm the fuck down," Trunks said with an annoyed glare in her direction. He maintained the harsh look until she had visibly relaxed. Turning back to the wheel, he said, "You remember your first day at Capsule Corps?"

How could she forget? She'd always assumed she'd have an easy transition from part-time inventor to full-time co-President. After all, she had little to no hands on experience with the latter aside from the press conferences she'd attended and the business meetings she'd been forced to watch. But Trunks gave her the same abrupt push he'd received years earlier from their mother. He'd given a brief tour of the office, gone over the agenda with her, and when she came back from a coffee break found her brother had ditched her. She'd spent the day not as co-President in training but rather the only acting President available, handling absolutely everything including things she didn't even know were part of her job. By the end of the day she was exhausted and nearly in tears, hating her brother.

But to Trunks' credit, she'd never had a day that rough since. Everything else had been almost easy in comparison when Trunks was actually around to help and take the brunt of the work.

He took her silence as an affirmative. "You need to be more involved in this stuff. Goten and I can't be the only ones taking care of this shit. Everyone's got to be able to handle this when it comes up." He paused slightly. "Consider this your trial by fire."

The rest of the trip passed in silence (Bra had to wonder if this was Trunks' intention all along) as she considered the potential seriousness of the situation. She'd never been in a _real_ fight before in her life. Everything had been a spar with carefully controlled conditions. Even when she managed to piss off her brother enough for him to come at her with a little more force, she had never felt she was in any real danger. The fight would always end if she said she'd had enough. Hell, she could rig a cheap victory against most of the guys by pretending to be hurt and crying then snapping her elbow back into their guts as hard as she could. It'd even worked on Pan once or twice.

And now they were headed into the complete unknown. If there was an incoming enemy, they had no idea on how many there were or how strong they could be or anything else. Bra's stomach did back flips in anxiety as she realized that, not only was it just her and Trunks out here, but they hadn't even told anyone else. No Pan. No Goten. No Daddy.

The thought of no backup almost had her hyperventilating.

_We don't even know if there's anything even there,_ she reassured herself. _Maybe you'll get lucky and it's just some unregistered satellite crash landing._

But even as the logical part of her could easily dismiss any danger, a deeper, darker part of her couldn't help but think, _But where would the fun in that be?_

As usual, Trunks' steadiness had a calming effect. Trunks could let a lot of things go. If it wasn't worth getting upset about, he'd ignore the problem (though how Bulma Briefs and Vegeta's son could have such a laid back manner and an almost complete lack of a temper was beyond her). It was just that much harder to be upset around him if he was cool and collected.

Any remnants of panic that might have surfaced were well under control by the time they arrived at the coordinates. Bra tried not to sigh in relief. She just wanted to figure out what the hell was going on and get back to work.

Ugh, she never thought she'd actually _want_ to work.

She followed her brother to the main exit hatch where he was packing a bag with equipment. He examined each piece carefully to make sure it was working, and if not he'd rattle it slightly before giving up and replacing it with a working model. She watched for probably a couple minutes before she felt completely useless and out of her element. In an attempt to keep her hands busy, she grabbed another pack – a dark red one that seemed somewhat familiar – and started going through it.

A slight laugh escaped her as she realized it was, in fact, her own backpack from years ago. She must have left it one of the days her brother had been nice enough to drive her to class. A winter jacket with a CC patch, a Differential Equations textbook stuffed with notes, some crumpled up dollar bills for lunch money, and a mini-skirt that she had no doubt meant to change into once out of sight of her protective older brother.

_Dende, this must be from High School. A jacket AND a mini-skirt? What was I thinking?_ she thought with amusement. Their family must be rich indeed if she could lose her entire backpack and not even notice.

She didn't even bother to unpack it – may as well take it with her when she went home later (she should probably find that textbook a proper home) – and instead began to investigate the shelves of equipment lining this part of the jet. Row after row of sophisticated gadgets that would make any electronics store look out of date. And these were just the spares they didn't need in the labs. Her hands itched to pick up some of the more sensitive items, but while unique and absolutely fun to play with, they probably wouldn't be much use.

_What does one pack before encountering a potential enemy?_ That was something that sure didn't come up in her tech classes.

Her brother seemed to be interested in the larger items they used for tracking electrical pulses and energy signatures. She shrugged slightly and started grabbing a mish-mash of smaller items. If it was just a satellite, these tools would help them dismantle it and salvage parts for further study or identification.

"Here," was the only warning she got before her brother chucked something at her.

Barely catching it before it made a dent in her face, she thanked her father's ancestors for super-human reflexes before examining whatever the hell her brother had just tried to kill her with.

Saiyan armor. She blinked, as if that would change the object in her hands.

Her cheeks flooded rouge as she processed what was going on. Trunks wanted her to wear this in _public_? Sure, they'd all worn the stuff before, but that was only to appease their father in his rants about the degradation of the Saiyan race. But never ever _ever_ had she worn it where someone might actually see her.

"We always wear it."

"What?"

Trunks had already ducked into the bathroom to change. "When we're not sure if there's going to be a fight. We always wear it, just in case," he called out, his voice muffled by the door.

She looked back down at the white armor chest plate and bright red spandex, the matching boots still on the rack. "It's not the combat I'm worried about," she muttered, but waited her turn to change.

Her mom had made all three of them new Saiyan armor, each in their own color so they could still feel like themselves even though they looked like a team. Red was her favorite color. Trunks got black. Their father still sported his royal blue. The Sons all wore black or blue – whatever fit. Vegeta rarely ever got on their case about it, so they really never needed to wear it.

Wearing the armor again made her feel so out of place. Her mother always said she had a "fighter's spirit," but in practice she didn't excel at it the way the rest of the Saiyans did. She could throw a punch, take a hit, and power a ki blast, but she didn't have the knack for it the rest that they all seemed to. It had always been a source of contention between her and her father and brother. Bra was obviously Vegeta's favorite, but Trunks always got the special attention for training that she craved. And while he wouldn't say anything, their father could hardly hide his disappointment in her fighting. And of course Trunks no doubt had some resentment towards Bra; he was, after all, the one who put literally blood, sweat and tears into his relationship with his father, yet without any effort his sister got all the attention.

By the time they had exited the jet, Bra's anxiety had returned, though the source was a little less clear.

"Whatever it is, it probably landed just after we did, about a half mile east of here."

_Couldn't have gotten us any closer? Geez,_ but her nerves made her keep the whine to herself.

They walked at a brisk pace, one that would probably wind a human, following the beeping of the tracker. The beeping sounded eerie – a mechanical tone in the natural hush of the wooded area they walked through. From their burrows and dens, the wildlife watched them curiously. Bra tried not to feel self-conscious about the armor.

_Don't be stupid, they're _animals. _They wouldn't care if you were naked._ But her hands lifted to cover her chest and she walked practically on Trunks' heels.

Neither sibling found it necessary to talk. It wasn't until about 100 yards from the crash site that Trunks turned off the scanner and slung it around his shoulder. The forest, sparsely populated with trees at best, gave way to a valley. The valley stretched down before them, a small smoldering pile of metal visible halfway down the slope.

The two looked at each other briefly.

Bra raises an eyebrow. _Should we go down?_

Trunks shrugs his shoulders. _May as well._

Fifteen feet down the gentle incline and so far, no signs of life.

No signs of life. No birds flying overhead, no more curious animals peeking around them. A metal object that just happens to miss the forest and trees and ends up in a valley. A metal object strong enough not to break up in orbit but that doesn't survive the crash. A fire that strangely the grass can't seem to catch.

Bra stops about a second before Trunks does, their senses on overdrive as they mentally search the area for a more substantial reason to be nervous.

A slight _whoosh_ is the only warning before Bra is hit in the back and goes flying face first to the ground.

She hears the sound of another blow, but Trunks doesn't join her on the grass so he must have dodged it. Bra quickly checks for injuries, but the backpack and armor cushioned the blow and fall.

Another _whoosh_ but this time she knows better, rolls out of the way to miss the foot that has now left a solid indentation in the ground. She looks up into the thoroughly displeased face of her attacker, a woman about twice her size with dark features that stand out against her slightly blue skin, ears coming to a point and then twirling in on themselves. The two stare at each other, one with unsuppressed disdain and the other with absolute astonishment. The sound of two men fighting nearby the backdrop for this surprise encounter.

"_Naiidoona,_" the woman spits, clearly an accusation. Her eyes have moved from Bra's to the armor at her chest. "Saiyan," she says with disgust.

Bra's not used to the pressure of a real fight. The idea that the opponent is striking to kill or the speed with which things escalate. She's on her feet and struggling just to avoid the blows dealt her way. The style's different, comes in places she doesn't expect and the first minute has her bruised and out of breath. But then she notices the pattern of her enemy's movements, the weight shifts that suggest different attacks. The second minute has her at least getting the chance to throw a punch or two of her own. The opponent, the strange blue woman with the onyx eyes, lets her anger get the best of her. Too much force behind the blows, not enough thought. The round house kick to the temple takes her down to her knees, the knee to the gut has her gasping and spitting blood.

Bra bounces slightly back and forth on the balls of her feet, waiting for the woman to get up and come back at her. Surely she hasn't incapacitated her already. That was merely round one, a probe into each other's defenses.

But she forgot about Trunks. Which means she forgot about Trunks' opponent. So when the blue woman just looks up at her with a knowing smile, she can't understand why until she feels something heavy swing right into her right temple. She has enough time to think that it's probably the hardest she's ever been hit in her life before the pain insures her that, yes, it is.

She's on her hands and knees, no, she's fallen to her elbows now, and she feels unconsciousness rolling around her like waves on a beach. She looks at her attackers, unsure if she's seeing them in double or triple but there's no way she can focus. She knows she should be going over her options – fight, flight, hide – but beyond that her mind just won't function.

They say something, many things maybe, as she tries to find some thought to cling to. She can't even tell if it's English, her ears give her nothing but a ringing sound. Maybe they laugh. Nothing's clearing up. In fact, her vision barely has room for them anymore as dots of black threaten to force her under.

The new attacker, the one that must have beaten Trunks, now has something in his hand and she wonders when it appeared. It's pointed at her and she thinks vaguely that it looks like a gun. The idea amuses her, and she has no idea why.

It goes very bright as the weapon fires, then very very dark.


	3. Chapter 2: On My Own

**AN:** This chapter surprised me. I had an outline of what I wanted to do, but I didn't get through more than a third of it. This part ended up longer than I thought it would, and the ending seems like a good place for this section. As a result, the chapter itself is not very long and doesn't progress the story very much, but it seemed necessary to detail Bra's state of mind and her struggles. And I know it's very introverted at the moment – but not to fear! Bra will actually get to talk to people in the next chapter!

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><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 2: On My Own**

The pain hit her before consciousness took over. Bra's first thought was that she had a hangover, and the worst possible hangover imaginable at that. Her second thought was that she had not once, thanks to her father's somewhat useful genetic contribution, even _had_ a hangover. As her mind muddled over the details, her body became increasingly aware of its discomfort. Pounding headache, check. Back contorted at an unusual angle, check. Throat dry and mouth parched, check and check. Stomach empty? A low grumble assured her that was the case.

Her instincts told her to force her way back into sleep. That if she opened her eyes she would not like what she found. If she could just manage to sleep a little more, escape from the pressures of the real world, she wouldn't have to deal with... whatever problem was nagging the back of her mind. But eventually her discomfort outweighed her lethargy and her eyes fluttered open.

It took a while for her eyes to adjust. The sun told her it was well past noon and the empty valley told her nothing else. As she turned from her back to her side, she fell slightly as she rolled off of a backpack. Confusion swept through her as she tried to remember where she was, but only burnt fragments of images could be pieced together. And as she forced herself to sit up slightly, leaning on her elbows, it was nausea that overtook her. But her stomach and the spinning slowly settled and her concerns shifted from the physical to the practical.

Young adult that she was, her first instinct was of course to pull out her cell phone and call for someone to pick her up. She'd never mastered Instant Transmission (_complete_ understatement), and that wasn't really an option with how she was currently feeling. Flying didn't seem like a good idea given she had no clue where she was, never mind that she'd probably drop like a lead brick if she tried it.

_"_Why the hell didn't I bring a car capsule?" she grumbled and winced at the throaty quality of her voice. Bra reached for her pocket only to find the unflattering red of her Saiyan armor. She frowned, not liking this at all, but turned to investigate the backpack. Tucked in a front pocket she found it, but nearly cried when she saw the cracked screen. Two attempts to turn it on made her worry it was either broken or out of batteries, both tragedies given the circumstances.

Muttering a string of curses at the device, usually her best friend in a situation like this, for betraying her, she gathered enough energy to force a small amount of her ki into the phone. In desperation she'd tried this once before at a party (Dende, she had _really_ needed Pan to come rescue her from some skeezeball who was bothering her) but had blown up the phone by mistake. Considering it was already useless and she couldn't make it _more_ useless at the moment, she figured it was worth a shot.

"Come on, baby," she changed as the phone glowed with fresh ki. "C'mon c'mon c'mon don't blow up c'mon... YEEEEE!" she squealed in delight as the screen lit up. "_Finally_ something goes right."

The battery bar still seemed dangerously low, but it would be enough to get a call out. Two at the most. Hopefully someone would be at home to pick up. But as Bra tried to think of the best person to call, a flashing image at the top of the screen finally registered.

No signal.

She just stared in confusion for a couple minutes as if the phone would change its mind under her unblinking gaze.

What. The. Fuck?

She was sure she couldn't be reading it right. She had _personally_ overseen the project that had launched dozens of satellites into orbit to make sure that _this very problem_ would not occur unless you were deep underground or barricaded in some old building with two foot concrete walls. You could be in the middle of goddamn Antarctica having lunch with penguins but you would have a damn good signal. Bra might not remember exactly where she was, but she knew she wasn't more than a few hours from West City. There's no _way_ she didn't have a signal here!

She nearly crushed the phone in frustration. She went over the names of all the people she wanted to kill right now for this utter failure of technology - whoever monitors the satellites, Trunks, the technicians responsible for maintenance, Trunks, the guy who had designed her phone, Trunks, . Only the vague and disturbing idea that Trunks was probably in worse trouble right now calmed her anger.

_Okay, Bra, what are the facts?_

_I came here with Trunks. We were looking for something._ Yes, that sounded right. Progress, so far.

_We walked here._ But from where? Which direction? She looked behind her up the hill. _That way, definitely that way._

_Why the armor?_ It pained her to concentrate. Why did it hurt so much-?

A blow from behind and a flash of light...

_Head injury. Probably a concussion._

A blow from behind...

_Fight. There was a fight._

She stopped herself from her next thought. Didn't let the words or the picture of her brother, unconscious or worse, form in her mind. She suppressed it as deeply as she could for the moment and focused instead on getting back to the jet.

The trip back was slow. Her feet were unsteady and every few minutes she doubled over in pain over the intensity of the headache she was experiencing. She kept her path as straight as possible and just prayed it was straight enough. If she didn't run straight into the jet, she'd probably never find it in her state.

She had no way of judging the time, but she imagined it must have taken her at least an hour to make it back to the clearing. The problem was that, of course, there was no jet.

Panic and frustration vied for control as Bra looked around the opening in the trees. This was _definitely_ the spot. She remembered nearly tripping over that tree stump as she slung on her backpack. She remembered the sound of the river nearby. She _knew_ this was the spot. It _had_ to be.

But there was no jet. In fact, it didn't look like a jet had been there any time within the past week, let alone earlier that day.

Frustration caused her to throw the backpack to the ground. Panic caused her to lean against the tree and hold her knees tightly to her chest. But it was despair that let the first sobs make themselves known.

She rocked herself back and forth, waiting to cry herself out. It was a sign of her own weakness and she knew it, but she was hurt and tired and confused and just wanted to be home. It wasn't an unreasonable request by any means.

As quickly as it started, her self-pity subsided.

_I am Bra Briefs Vegeta, for Dende's sake!_ she scolded herself as she wiped away the tears. _I can _do _this!_

With a determination that hopefully would have made her father proud, she grabbed the backpack, picked the direction that seemed most like north, and took off into the air.

It made her quite dizzy to maintain altitude, so she settled on a low height that had her within a foot of the tree line. Occasionally she would dip a little and her hands would graze the pine needles before she forced her way back up. It was slow going. It reminded her of when she had first learned how to fly and Trunks would be a jerk and take off at supersonic speeds while she was wobbling through the air at the pace of a light jog.

_Asshole,_ she thought, but the sentiment was half-hearted at best. She was more than willing to admit that she could use her big brother right now.

What little daylight there was left had long since faded by the time she saw the first buildings crop into view. A small town - probably not more than twenty buildings in all - slowly became larger and larger until she had no choice to land. The last thing she needed on top of her headache was to be seen by some yokels who would freak out and try to shoot her. Impervious skin or not, a shotgun to the back still stung like a bitch. And she was still wearing the damn armor. Embarrassing much?

_Thank Dende for farm towns,_ though she wasn't feeling too thankful as she crawled through a filthy hayloft and tried to make herself comfortable. Her energy was too low for her ki to keep her warm. The armor kept some of her body heat in, but she found herself more than thankful for the winter coat in the backpack. She could deal with sleeping _on_ a pile of hay, but she wasn't quite ready to sleep _under_ one.

* * *

><p>Roosters. She fucking hated roosters.<p>

All she wanted to do was sleep until it stopped hurting, but the endless cawing kept her up. When the damn birds had finally stopped, she was too alert to do anything but face the day.

Lovely.

The sunlight streaming through the cracks in the wall found Bra curled into a ball, head resting on the mistreated red backpack, shivering in her spandex and coat. She tried not to think of the word "pathetic" as she stretched the sleep out of her limbs.

She tried not to think about how badly she smelt as she snuck out of the barn and took off as high as she could. Starving though she was, she felt significantly better and didn't have problems keeping herself aloft. Speed wasn't exactly possible yet, but at least she had height.

Bra went over her priorities for the day. It was an old habit, making lists and goals, but the idea of keeping a routine was so ingrained into her by her father that it was actually comforting to do it.

1. Get my bearings. Need to find out if I'm headed in the right direction. No use wasting my energy unless I'm actually headed to West City.

2. Eat. No further explanation needed.

3. If possible, find something to change into. Not a priority, but if the opportunity presents itself... Gotta get out of this armor.

4. Contact Mom and Dad. Find out what happened to Trunks.

She felt guilty for putting her brother so low on the list, but she'd gone a day without eating. She'd be useless without something in her stomach. If things were bad, they needed her in fighting condition ASAP. If things were fine, then Trunks was fine anyway.

Satisfied with the list, she stopped in the first city she spotted. It was still early enough that she had no problem finding an abandoned street to land in. She hesitated before heading out into the street. The jacket made her look a little less normal, but bright red leggings... She pulled the miniskirt out of her backpack and pulled them on, thankful they still fit (though as short as they were, she wasn't sure that 'fit' was the best word).

Suddenly she was glad there wasn't a mirror to check her outfit in.

This sort of thing wouldn't bother the boys. Her father was probably more comfortable in Saiyan armor than he was in the human clothes mom forced him to wear outside of the Compound. Trunks had this weird, eerie self-assurance that he always looked good. Which was ridiculous considering his kerchief phase. The Sons, as far as she could tell, had this country style that let them wear pretty much anything without being embarrassed. And Bra had seen that Saiyaman outfit. Clearly Gohan didn't care _what_ he wore in public.

As crappy as the last day had been, she just couldn't bring herself to go full Saiyan down the street on top of it.

People were just starting to make their way to work. While she got a few strange stares, a quick scowl usually was enough to get them to turn away. It occurred to her she could just ask one of them what she needed to know, but the idea of dealing with these strangers made her want to punch through a wall. Bra hated relying on other people, though her family and friends and occasionally her assistant at work were the obvious exception. She wandered around looking for landmarks and, more importantly, a place to eat.

Nothing was ringing any bells. Whenever she thought she recognized something, she'd look for a nearby building and find it missing or looking completely different. The train station looked familiar, but it was next to an outdated library instead of a park. The college looked like one she'd visited for a lecture, but it lacked the parking garage she had used. The skyscrapers that she saw downtown reminded her of more impressive ones she'd seen in a city just like this... but most of these were half built.

The newspaper drew her attention. The picture had one that seemed familiar. Like something she'd seen in a history textbook or something. As she got closer, pulled in by her curiosity, the picture - one of a rocky landscape with what looked like an arena, Hercules Satan clearly visible to the side (she'd recognize that ridiculous hair anywhere) - turned out to be the least interesting part. Across the top stood a headline in all caps.

REMEMBERING THE CELL GAMES - ONE YEAR LATER.

Suddenly her priorities had shifted.


	4. Chapter 3: Priorities

**AN:** Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to review. Good or bad, I appreciate the feedback and the support as I continue to work my way through my first cohesive, serious story. This chapter is up so soon because I had always assumed it would be grouped with the previous one, so it was easy to keep the momentum going. I wouldn't expect the next installment for another week at least, though! Thanks again and enjoy.

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 3: Priorities**

Bra just stood there, completely dumbfounded, staring at the words in front of her. She didn't even know when she'd walked over and picked up the newspaper, but she was gripping it tightly in her hands and could feel the panic constricting around her lungs and heart. There was the title, as clear as day. And worse yet, there was the date. May 768.

Ten years before she was born.

"Hey, lady, you gonna buy that or what? This ain't no library."

Her head turned slightly to take in the shape of the port vendor with the huge mustache who'd just addressed her. No words formed in response and the man stepped over, clearly annoyed but he stopped short when he saw what she'd been looking at.

"Cell Games, huh? Geez, those were bad times." She didn't acknowledge him so he tried again, somewhat tentatively, "You uh, you didn't lose someone in that, did you?"

It was like her mind was in a thick mist. Bra was both trying to process the world around her and trying very hard not to understand the implications of what she was holding. "My... my brother," she answered lamely. She swallowed hard, but her throat remains as dry as a moment ago.

"Aw geez." The man obvious looked uncomfortable. "Why don't you... why don't you have it," he says dumbly, as if the gesture could erase her lost brother.

"Thanks," she said just as awkwardly.

When she didn't move, the guy shifted back and forth on his feet, not sure whether to comfort her or try to get her away from his stand. His eyes fell on the patch on her jacket and lit up. "Hey, you work for Capsule Corps? You kinda look like that woman... what's her name? Bel... Bloo... Oh yeah, Bulma. Bulma Brief. You look a lot like her. You two related or something?"

"No." _Not anymore._

"You sure you're not like, cousins or something? Cuz you are a deadringer for-"

A numbness she can't understand makes her limbs heavy, and it was with great difficulty that she forces herself to walk away from the puzzled man and his attempts at smalltalk.

She wandered around in a haze before realizing she had settled at a bench, the newspaper nearly crumpled in her hands. Apparently she'd been walking around town staring at it.

_This cannot be happening... this cannot be happening_. But the paper continued to stare back at her, saying otherwise.

A deep breath, then another, and a final one, gave her the will to force her way out of her mini-freak out session.

_Get it together, Bra! You've got to figure something out._

Okay, who to go to. She wasn't in a position to do anything about this completely alone. At the very least she would need supplies. Food. Food would be nice. But who? This was something that needed to stay in the family. Everyone had learned from Mirai and Cell. You keep this quiet, tell as few people as possible, come into contact with people only when necessary. No need to fuck things up more than they already are. More than just the obvious was at stake. She automatically went through the list of people she normally depended upon. Pan. Trunks. Goten. Gohan. Dad. Mom.

1. Pan. Not born yet. Fuck.

2. Trunks. Two years old. Fuck.

3. Goten. One year old. Fuck.

4. Gohan. Teenager, yes. Dealing with the death of his father last year, yes. In a position to help her, no.

5. Dad. Probably still at some awkward point in his relationship with Mom. Fighter and strategist, not a thinker, not a scientist. No ability to provide moral support for someone he has yet to meet. No ability to construct complex devices to allow her to travel back to her time. Likely to be hostile towards her. Not an option.

6. Mom. Has the resources and the skill to help. Will want to help a future daughter, even if she hasn't been born yet. Can keep a secret if absolutely necessary. But will likely be looking for reassurance about her future relationship with Vegeta. Even if she knows better, likely to pry. Provides greatest possibility for messing up the timeline. Most likely result... not being born.

Fuck.

But her Mom still provided the best hope. If there were just some way to get access to the lab and the house. Some way that didn't mean having to reveal herself to anyone, even to Bulma. But how could she even manage that? Bulma ran Capsule Corps. Even when Trunks and Bra had taken over, she kept tabs on who was using her labs and requesting parts. Bra couldn't tell her mother anything without giving everything away. She was just too noisy and too smart.

Wait... It's 768. Bulma Brief is NOT in charge of Capsule Corps. Dr. Brief is. Her grandfather, the one who died when she was too young to really remember...

7. Dr. Brief. Always described as sensible. Apparently liked her father. Would likely be able to keep a secret. No motive to pry, but also no reason to hide information from him since he was not directly involved in her birth. Obviously very smart. Has access to all of the resources Bra would need. Likely to help a distressed granddaughter, even one that hadn't been born yet. Not a perfect solution, but best one available.

_Alright. Looks like I'll be paying Dr. Brief a visit._

* * *

><p>Mirai Trunks had had it easy. Sure, he looked a little like Vegeta, but because of the time he was traveling to, who would've believed it? It was easy for him to come and claim to be a Saiyan from the future without having to reveal too much of himself. And even if they had suspected Vegeta, who would've put him with their mother?<p>

Bra's luck was seemingly much worse. If she said she was a Saiyan from the future, one look at her told them _exactly_ what her lineage was. Even if she tried to hide that she was from the future, her resemblance to her mother and her father's temper would give her away within an hour flat. If she was going to be spending time at Capsule Corps, she needed to minimize that resemblance.

Which is how she found herself ducking through the isles of a pharmacy, searching desperately for the hair dye. She'd found a grand total of $45 in the backpack and pockets of the miniskirt. Not exactly a lot to work with. Her credit card obviously wasn't an option. It was connected to a bank account that didn't exist and in the name of someone who hadn't been born yet. Obviously it wouldn't work, and the activity might somehow alert her mother to her presence. Luckily there was enough cash to provide a temporary solution to her problems.

Bargain shopping was luckily a forte of hers. Between the black hair dye, the crappy reading glasses, and the ill-fitting black t-shirt, she had the makings of a decent disguise. Honestly, she knew she wouldn't have fooled a single person who actually knew her, but the brilliance of it was she didn't have to. She was just trying to throw off people who wouldn't even be looking for her.

_Less is more,_ she told herself as she finished blow-drying her freshly dyed hair in the bathroom of a McDonalds. She did her best to wash herself in the sink, but she was a mess. In the end, she was a brunette with glasses wearing a black shirt and miniskirt over red spandex, still wearing Saiyan boots and a CC jacket. The boots she didn't think would be a problem. The style had become popular after the Cell Games, much to her father's chagrin, and it wasn't uncommon to find similar pairs in high end boutiques. The armor she stuffed in the backpack as best she could. It didn't really fit, but she didn't feel like parting with it. She had so little from her life with her, after all.

She appraised her new appearance in the mirror, wondering if she still looked like herself. She thought she might pass for Pan's sister or cousin. The eye color would always give her away as Trunks' sister, but only if you knew to look. Only if you were trying to _prove_ it.

Bra couldn't decide what to do with her hair. She'd considered cutting it or styling it, but that would risk making it look like one of the many many _many_ hairstyles her mother had adopted over the years. She was honestly better off leaving it like it was - long and with bangs - since her mother usually didn't bother with something so plain. Maybe a bun or a braid...

A loose braid holding her terribly dirty hair back and she definitely looked like a stranger. A fashion challenged, smelly stranger.

Perfect.

* * *

><p>Her last five bucks was blown on the Dollar Menu and her morning ended with her empty stomach trying to digest the greasy over-processed food. Luckily she had bigger things to worry about, so she was grateful for the calories, whatever the source.<p>

Capsule Corps was the obvious next destination. Bra finally gave in and asked where she was and which direction was the fastest to West City.

Even the great metropolis looked a little less grand than she was used to. The Mass Transit system wasn't as big as she remembered, for one. And to her great surprise, the Capsule Corps Headquarters was nowhere to be found.

_Idiot_, she scolded. _They built that when _you _were a kid. _

Indeed, she remembered her mom walking her through the construction site. Over the years the Brief-Vegeta family had been increasingly desirous for more and more privacy. Bit by bit, Capsule Corps was moved from its location on the Compound to different areas within the city before Bulma finally got around to finding a central location.

Which meant she had to go to the Compound. And that meant getting closer to her family than she wanted to risk.

_It's never that easy, is it?_

She knew better than to fly directly there. The only reason she hadn't been pursued by the Z Fighters is because they had no reason to expect a threat. They weren't looking for stray ki's powering up and flying around. But there was absolutely no way she could fly that close to CC without alerting her father.

It was decently late in the afternoon by the time she walked into the lobby. Bra had erred on the side of safety in choosing a location to land, and her disappointing lack of funds meant she was in for quite the walk.

A cheerful red-head was sitting behind the desk in the surprisingly simple lobby. It lacked the elegance and modern architecture which was more in her mother's taste, and she guessed this was her grandfather's doing. Somewhat uncertain of how to approach this, she walked up to the desk and waited for the woman to notice her.

"Capsule Corps, please hold," she said and pushed a button on her headset. "May I help you, miss?"

Bra was all too aware of the look the woman was giving her. That look clearly said, _You don't belong here._

_Don't I know it, lady_.

"I'd like to see Dr. Brief. Immediately."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No."

"Then there's nothing I can do. Dr. Brief is a very busy man and can't take walk-ins. If you'd like to schedule an appointment, I can see what we can work out…"

She could tell this is the type of woman who would 'schedule' an appointment and then proceed to 'lose' her contact information. The thought of what Trunks would do to a receptionist like this made her smirk slightly.

"Tell him it's urgent." That clearly wasn't enough. Think. What would get Dr. Brief's attention? Oh, she could say a lot of things, but it needed to be something that was interesting enough to get her in but not shocking enough to have him send Bulma to investigate. Something that was 768 important. "Tell him it's about the fusion core he's hoping to install in the new plant in Kyoto."

The woman seemed shocked. If Bra remembered correctly, this was a huge project. The last her grandfather headed before retiring and handing everything over to her mother. One that wasn't completed until 770, but would definitely be in the works by now. Probably not even on the public radar yet. Yes, this should do nicely.

"Alright," she said, making a quick call. "He'll see you in his office. I'll show you the way."

Bra grinned as she followed down the hall. She definitely got his attention if she was allowed in this fast and the damn receptionist was forced to show her the way.

A quick knock and she was in the office of a man she barely remembered. For some reason, the only real coherent memory she had of her grandfather included a black cat perpetually draped over his shoulder. But that was ridiculous. Something her childhood memories didn't carry over correctly into adulthood.

He appraised her briefly before asking, "How much do you know?"

"Everything."

He raised an eyebrow. _Go on._

She took a deep breath. _Now or never, I guess_.

"I know about Mirai Trunks and the Androids and Dr. Gero. I know Hercules Satan is physically incapable of beating up Trunks even at age two, let alone Cell. I know Vegeta's 'Prince of all Saiyans' and yes, I know what a Saiyan is. I know he's Trunks' father."

All of that wasn't exactly public knowledge. In fact, none of it was. "Alright, young lady, you have my attention. What else?"

"I know other things too." She started pacing back and forth in front of his desk, letting herself get caught up in her story. "Stuff that hasn't happened yet. I know when Bulma and Vegeta will get married. I know when the next attack on Earth will be and by whom. I know what Trunks will major in in college. Hell, I even know what day you and your wife are going to die. And no, I wouldn't tell you even if you asked me." She stopped in her tracks to look at him and gauge his reaction.

He stared. She didn't know him well enough to read his reaction to all this. Very slowly, articulating each word carefully, he finally asked, "Who are you?"

"My name's Bra."

"_Bra_?" he repeated, both amused and shocked.

She flushed slightly. "Yes. _Bra._ I didn't _pick_ the name. You can blame it on my _mother's_ lovely sense of humor when it comes to naming her children after _undergarments_."

Dr. Brief did allow a small reaction to this piece of information, but hid it almost immediately.

More boldly this time, she continued, "My name is Bra Brief Vegeta. I'm your granddaughter."

He didn't say anything, so she kept going. "I can prove it if you need me to. You can have a blood sample. You've probably got some of Mom's around here somewhere. You can match it to Trunks' too, if you want. I doubt you have any of Dad's lying around, but if you do, you could check it to his." She paused, but then felt it was necessary to add, "If you don't, I wouldn't recommend trying to get a sample..."

Dr. Brief leaned back in his chair, thinking over what she had said. If he was at all surprised, he didn't show it. "So," he finally said, "he's actually going to marry her?"

Bra sighed in relief and visibly relaxed. "Yeah. Two years from now. June 18th. Small ceremony. Trunks was ring bearer." She hesitated slightly. "So, you believe me?"

"Your story is too absurd not to be true."

"That hardly seems like a great basis for trust…"

"You have your brother's eyes," he stated simply. "And your mother's nose. You carry yourself like your father. Though I wonder that your hair turned out so dark."

"Funny story…"

She explained as much as she dared, which turned out to be quite a lot. About her life, about Trunks and her parents. About how shitty the last 48 hours had been. How lost and alone she felt. He took it all in stride. Occasionally he'd ask a question, but mostly he just let her talk, knowing that she needed this release.

"Do you have a plan on how to get back?"

"That would be the million dollar question, wouldn't it," she grumbled. "I don't quite have a plan yet. But I know I need a lab and equipment. I won't be able to get back under my own power, after all."

"Very well. That's easy enough to take care of. I'll put you in my personal lab. I don't use it much these days, anyway. I'm too busy running the company to have time to invent anymore."

"I know the feeling." She used to have hours on end to fiddle around with her various projects. Now the best she could do was delegate her pet projects to people she trusted and maybe get some time in the lab if she gave up some of her social obligations. Pan was usually the first to complain. Though she was just as likely to complain about the lack of stories concerning her adventures in dating than to complain about actually missing her friend…

"You can't tell my parents about this. I…" She suddenly felt very tired. Any excitement she had felt a few moments ago had left her more drained than before. "Well, I guess I'd kind of like to still be born at some point."

"I can see why that might be a priority for you."

"Thank you. Really, I can't say that enough. Thank you for helping me."

"What kind of grandfather would I be if I didn't help?"

"A justifiably suspicious one. I'm still willing to give you a blood sample." Bra hesitated again. "I could go Super, but I'm pretty sure every ki-sensitive person on the planet would be breaking their way into the lab just to figure out what the hell just happened."

"Keep the blood, dear. I trust you just fine. I wouldn't have made it this far with my business if I didn't have a good sense of when someone was lying to me." He paused, as if considering something else she had said. "Are you hungry? I know Saiyans eat a lot. Trunks already eats more than I do, and you're five times his size."

"I'm fine," she said immediately. She wasn't ready to impose on his hospitality any more than she already had. But her treacherous stomach chose that moment to growl, too eager at the possibility of food to care about being rude. "Maybe a little."

"I'll have some pizza sent down to the lab. I suspect you'll want to get started immediately?"

"Thank you. Again."

"You should stop doing that."

"What?"

"Thanking me. Bulma rarely does it and your father, as best as I can tell, never does. I'll start doubting whether you really are my granddaughter at this rate."

She laughed despite herself. "Even at the risk of being an oddity among my family members, I'm going to have to insist on thanking you whenever I get the chance."

Dr. Brief walked around his desk and put an arm around the young woman's shoulder. "In that case, why don't I show you the lab, my dear," he said with a conspiratorial tone.


	5. Chapter 4: Back to Where

**AN: **As I said, the last quick update was somewhat of a fluke. This chapter would have been finished a few days ago but I had to a whole chunk that needed to be re-written. Like the previous chapters, this was initially meant to be one long chapter, but it got a little _too_ long so it's been split up. The second "half" will be up in a few days.

Thanks to those of you who have reviewed or read. I really appreciate it! I'd love to receive feedback particularly about character development, as I typically don't do anything this long with the same character.

Bonus points to anyone who recognizes the title of this chapter.

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 4: Back to Where You've Never Been**

Bra spent the rest of that day fiddling with her cell phone and loading up on coffee. She was dead tired, but she wanted to have some sort of success before calling it a day. She was too tired to understand why the phone had become such a priority, but she trusted her instincts enough to press on. It wasn't until probably two in the morning that she had rigged a make-shift charger and uploaded all of the info onto a laptop Dr. Brief was kind enough to give her. She also went through the tools she'd taken from the jet. While nothing seemed particularly useful or valuable, she needed to take stock of her inventory before pressing on.

Somewhat satisfied, she passed out into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

When she finally woke up, it was quite dark out. A clock read 1:00 in big digital letters, and she suspected she had slept through the day. _A_ day, at least. Perhaps more. She stretched slightly in an effort to undo the effects of sleeping on the lab fouton. Her stomach rumbled and she wondered how best to deal with it. Not to mention she had a considerable amount of BO to address.

The labs were eerily quiet. It might have bothered had she not grown up on the Compound and around CC. She was more than used to large buildings with few people, and indeed sometimes preferred the privacy. She _especially_ enjoyed it now as she broke her way into her mother's office. Bulma was, how did they always phrase it, "very particular" about her office. There was a lounge area complete with leather couch and recliners, a mini-bar, a kitchenette, the largest desk you could imagine, and, of course, a full bath. Bra made a beeline for the shower.

She took the hottest shower she possibly could, then spent a good half hour scrubbing her clothes clean. After checking her father's ki (powered down), she took a chance to use her own to dry off everything. Honestly, she probably could have found something else to wear just by searching her mom's office, but the armor, skirt and jacket were all that she had left. Though she was more than happy to continue using the black shirt.

Once she was completely convinced she'd left no clues in her mom's office, she made her way back to her grandfather's lab, stopping only to raid the vending machines (which were not yet built to sustain the "gentle" nudging of a hungry Saiyan).

"Okay," she thought as she tapped her fingers anxiously on a work bench. "Now what?"

Bra spent a better part of the early morning sifting through the files she'd salvaged from her phone. There was a lot of personal information - photos, videos, her calendar - which she immediately deleted from the laptop. But what sent a surge of hope through her was the data she found. All Brief equipment (or at least anything even remotely electronic) hooked into their satellite system to both download new software and upload any data collected.

Her phone, which was basically more powerful than the average super computer, was programmed to automatically download everything that she, Trunks, or their mother uploaded. It was an easy excuse that let her do work outside of the office and avoid the usual debriefings that followed a lot of her brother's experiments. He was somewhat maniacal in the sheer amount of data he took on even the most mundane projects. His ability to throw himself into his work was somewhat familiar to the Brief women, though he was never focused enough to go to Vegeta's extremes.

Luckily the equipment from the jet and that Trunks took with them had been streaming to the system. Everything he'd found out about the crash, the ship, even the strange weapon they'd fired, was conveniently packaged right there on her phone and now on the laptop. All she had to do was decompress it, decrypt it and dig through it. Apparently her brother's obsessive attention to detail and her own laziness were finally going to pay off.

Though she shuddered to think what would have happened if her impromptu ki charge _had_ broken the damn thing.

By the time the rest of the staff was pouring in, Bra had managed to narrow down the files she was actually interested in and was analyzing anything she could about that weapon. While the readouts on the ship were mildly interesting, mostly because of the alloys used to create it, she was pretty sure it was the weapon and the weapon alone that had sent her here.

She was muttering to herself, fake reading glasses low on her noise to the point that they would have been rendered useless if she really needed them, when she heard the lab door open.

"Not too busy, I hope?"

"Busy means home," she said, but hearing a friendly voice instantly brightened her mood. She twirled her chair around and greeted her grandfather with a tired smile.

"I brought you some food. Know it's not much, but it's the best I could do. It's surprisingly hard to sneak food out of my own kitchen with two hungry Saiyans constantly eyeing it."

She snorted. "You're telling me." _Mmmm donuts and coffee. Food of the gods. _

They chatted for a while before Dr. Brief made up some excuse and left. Their budding relationship was obviously strange. Neither was particularly comfortable with the other, viewing them as a stranger. But there was a strong sense of familiarity. Bra was too much like her parents for him not to notice, and his friendly demeanor reminded her of half-remembered childhood memories.

It was late afternoon by the time she moved on to blueprints. She was obviously some time away from actually putting anything together. Half the parts she needed would have to be ordered, and even with the weight of the Capsule Corps name behind it, it would take time. Not to mention all the tools, with the exception of those in her pack, were older than she was used to dealing with. She'd have to spend at least a few days fashioning make-shift ones. Then there was the testing phase...

Best case scenario, she'd be here another couple weeks. She didn't acknowledge the worst case scenario.

_Not a big deal,_ she thought. _I've gone that long avoiding my parents without even trying._

She'd decided to keep the basic gun shape she remembered. She really had no idea if the shape was important for sending out that type of energy beam, but she figured it was best not to mess with it. She wasn't here to spend weeks optimizing or streamlining an old design. It didn't have to look pretty. Just be functional.

At some point the smell of food lured her out of the lab. Normally she'd ignore the catered lunches the company often provided its workers, but she was in no position to turn down a free meal.

"Just get in, grab some food, and get out of there."

_Good pep talk. Geez, you're already talking to yourself._

There were enough people crowded into the conference room that Bra didn't warrant more than a passing glance. But apparently the Capsule Corps employees were already used to strange guests. In comparison to her father, she probably didn't seem that interesting. After all, her hair didn't defy gravity.

As Bra nibbled on the sandwiches and cookies she'd swiped (she wondered how suspicious it would be if she took five or six servings but figured she couldn't risk it until the room had cleared out more), she turned to find herself staring into the annoyed face of her mom. Bulma was younger than Bra had ever seen her, except for in pictures. At this moment, it was even more striking than usual how similar the two women looked. At this age – only a few years older than Bra currently was – they could easily have passed for twins.

It was freaky.

_Thank Dende I dyed my hair…_

Bulma's voice went up an octave and took on a "pissed-at-Vegeta" level of anger. By force of habit, Bra's adrenaline level started to climb and her heart beat a little faster, but then it calmed. Bulma had no reason to be upset with her. For once, the annoyance that instinctively made Bra wince a little wasn't directed at her. She was having a rather loud "conversation" with what must have been a supplier.

_I'd hate to be the poor schmuck on the other end of the phone..._ No way was the commission worth dealing with Bulma Brief when she was even mildly pissed. Oh well, not _her_ job to try and calm her mom down right now.

Bra was still eyeing the dessert table when her attention was abruptly brought back to her mother.

"Who's the kid?" Even if she weren't Saiyan, it wasn't quite low enough. Her mother was always too loud…

At first Bra dismissed the comment. She was thirty. She hardly qualified as a "kid" even if she could pass for her early twenties. It just didn't fit her image of herself. It was only when she heard Dr. Brief's answer that she realized they were talking about _her_.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, her." Dr. Brief was obviously uncomfortable, most likely because he knew Bra could hear them and because he hoped not to draw any undue attention to her. "She's the daughter of a friend of mine. Came a long way to intern here."

"How far?"

He thought about it briefly before replying, "Farther than most."

Bulma gave the girl a once over out the corner of her eye, but still doing a terrible job of being subtle about it. "Doesn't look like much," she whispered. "Sure she can handle it in the lab?"

_Gee, thanks Mom._

"I'm sure she'll be fine." He had the good grace to appear embarrassed on his daughter's behalf, and sensing an opportunity, managed to get Bulma out of there to discuss the issues with the supplier.

* * *

><p>The place was weird. The lab setup was off from all the labs she'd ever worked in. The tools were funny. It was a combo electronics and chem. lab, apparently, and had a weird smell that bothered her to no end. The windows were on the north side of the building instead of the east. It was just… weird. And now, of course, she was too awake and too well-fed to not notice all the minute little differences that hadn't even reached her consciousness yesterday.<p>

But after a while it became easy to think of herself being at the Capsule Corps she knew from her own time, absorbed in some project or other. She'd often spent time in a lab alone, pouring over schematics or tinkering with parts. That was the key, really. To focus on her work rather than her surroundings. If she let her mind wander enough, she could almost imagine that Trunks or Pan would interrupt her at any moment…

A thoroughly chewed pencil behind her ear, Bra was making edits to some of the finer details of her blueprints and singing along to the music she'd started playing. Okay, the music she'd started _blasting_. Most of the time if one of the Brief children was at home, there'd be music emanating from their respective wings. It bothered Vegeta most, with his sensitive ears and utter disdain for Earth music, but since he was most often in the Gravity Chamber, they got away with it a lot.

It was probably four or five times before she heard the shouting behind her. She instantly shut off her phone, hiding it under some papers as she swiveled around. She wasn't sure how good MP3-player technology was in this time, but she was pretty sure a phone shouldn't be able to get that loud.

"Well?" the older-ish woman snapped with an echoing staccato of her foot tapping on the ground.

Bra actually shook her head to force herself to focus. "Sorry?"

"What's your name?"

"Bra," she said before thinking, then quickly added, "But you can call me Bulla." It was a nickname she had used at school when she'd been too mortified to tell people her name was "Bra."

"_Bra?_" Bulma asked incredulously. "Who on Earth would name you that?"

_You,_ she thought, thinking daggers at her mother. "My parents, obviously." Unfortunately the aggressiveness came out in her tone as well, and Bulma narrowed her eyes and moved back onto the attack.

"What are you doing in my father's lab?"

_I _was_ working._

_Not going to cut it, Bra. This isn't your mother. Tone down the annoyed child routine._

"Dr. Brief said I could use it." She refrained from adding "obviously." Having an attitude with Bulma Brief her mother would get her an earful. Having an attitude with Bulma Brief the suspicious VP of Capsule Corps would get her kicked off the premises.

Bulma seemed to digest this for a minute. Seeing no reason to continue in that vein, she found another line of attack. "What were you listening to a minute ago? I've never heard that song before."

Bra raised an eyebrow, somewhat impressed. But of course, if anyone would notice something like that, it would be her. "They're a local band." _And by local, I of course mean world famous._

"Where are you from, anyway?"

_Alright, I led her into that one…_

"The US." She'd spent a summer abroad in Miami, so she was sure she could fake her way through any follow-up questions.

"How exactly does my father know your parents?"

She shrugged. "I don't really know. They've known each other since before I was born. College, I guess."

The interrogation went on for a while, but Bra was as skilled a liar as Bulma was an interrogator. And of course the former had the advantage of knowing how the latter thought. In the end, Bulma had to concede defeat and left the slightly younger woman back to her work which, thankfully, had not been a subject of discussion.

**Achievement Unlocked! **

First meeting with your mom, completed. Still allowed in labs. Congratulations!

"Well," Bra muttered as she turned the music back on. "All things being said, I guess that could've gone worse."


	6. Chapter 5: Home Sweet Home

**AN: **As promised, a quick update! This chapter is somewhat of a break from the main plot. I wanted to explore the one relationship that seemed like it wouldn't change significantly. I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up, but it will probably be a short one and will segue back into Bra's problems and attempts to get home.

Again, thanks for the reviews and support. I loled when I saw I had put "condensation" instead of "condescension" in the prologue. If only I weren't too lazy to make the correction…

By the way, this is officially the longest fanfic I've ever written. Yay!

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 5: Home Sweet Home**

_Bra was back in the valley, looking at the smoldering wreck of a ship. It glowed an eerie orange-green that had her on edge. Nothing had that color. Nothing from Earth…_

_She moved away from the treeline, edged as slowly as she could. Her entire body was painfully tense. She knew something was wrong, something terrible. But she forced her way forward. To that damn ship. She _had_ to see the wreck. There could be something in it that could help her get home…_

_It happened just like before. A _whoosh_ and then a blow from behind that sent her flying to the ground. She grunted in pain before forcing her way to her knees, trying to get ready to defend herself. _

_But she wasn't fast enough. Blow after blow, too fast for her to see, left her with no choice but to stay down and try to shield her head. So many so fast it made her dizzy. She felt the bruises as the formed, felt as though her bones were fracturing a little more with each hit._

"_GET AWAY FROM HER!" came the downright feral cry from her brother just before the blows abruptly stopped. _

_She chanced a look and this time saw her attacker go flying. Her brother's protective form stood in between in all his Super Saiyan glory. Her heart leapt at the sight. Trunks, as always, meant safety. _

_Bra recognized the sinister look in the blue woman's eyes as she watched Trunks. Distracted him like she'd distracted Bra…_

_The bigger one was back, came out from the left and struck Trunks' side. It wouldn't be until later that she'd realized he had no defined shape. Just a general size and an overall look that was very much like the blue woman. He was perhaps a touch darker, his eyes somehow more menacing, but beyond that there were no details. He was just the ghost of a memory that had never been clear. _

_They both came at him together. Not a word between them, but there was no mistaking their coordination. She'd take him from the right, draw his attention and leave him unguarded from the rear, where her partner would cut in and jab the kidneys. Then they'd switch and it'd happen again. Trunks just couldn't keep up with both of them, and soon they had him on his knees, shielding himself the way Bra had earlier. _

_She tried to get up and help, but her earlier beating had taken all the fight out of her. It was all she could do to crawl towards them, pleading for them to stop. _

"_Please," she sobbed again and again. "Not Trunks. Please…"_

_But the next blow always came, and the blood kept flying…_

She woke up with a start, aware that the echo of Trunks' name was still resounding off the walls of the lab. The air kept catching violently as she tried to take it in and tears were welling in her eyes. She refused to give in to the impulse to cry, and it was with great effort that she calmed herself down.

She was only hiccupping slightly by the time she noticed Dr. Brief staring at her from the corner of the lab, a cup of coffee steaming in one hand and an unreadable look at his face. He at least made the effort of appearing to be going over her work. "Must have been some dream," he said, though the question was there. _Just a dream, right? Not a memory._

"Yeah," she choked. The sun was peaking in through the windows. It would still be early, Bra guessed, but how early she couldn't tell. "Was there something you wanted?"

There was an underlying hostility there that she couldn't hide. She hated seeming weak, even in front of this old man she barely could claim to know. Reacting so strongly to a nightmare was childish, especially in the face of everything else. But the idea that it _could_ be happening to him and there was no way for her to help…

"Your father still wakes up screaming sometimes, too," he said gently. "But like all things, it'll pass."

She started slightly but otherwise didn't respond. Her father slept like the dead. Granted, he woke up with an intensity and alertness that was quite impressive, but when he was out, he was out.

Sensing a change of topic was necessary, he shifted forward and started making his way to the door. "I wanted to invite you in for breakfast."

"But my parents-"

"Have already eaten and left."

Embarrassment made her want to avoid her grandfather, but the need for a square meal easily won out. "Alright. Sure."

The kitchen was about half the size she remembered it being. She was used to the big combined dining and cooking area that could feed six fully grown Saiyans at once. Not to say this was a small space. By human standards it was downright extravagant. It just wasn't… home.

Dr. Brief was gracious enough to not bother with chitchat while she worked her way through a couple stacks of pancakes. She wondered if she was just starving of if these pancakes weren't especially delicious. Her mother sure as hell couldn't cook this well.

They were soon interrupted by the arrival of an overly cheerful blond woman, no doubt the source of the amazing breakfast spread, followed by a small little creature that was rather unimpressive to look at but nevertheless that immediately commanded Bra's full attention.

Her eyes followed the chubby little being that had just walked into the room, his left hand gliding across the wall to help him keep his balance. It was... surreal. This kid was so distinctly _Trunks _from the look in his eyes right down to the way he moved (a little more clumsy than he would later become, but the overall shape of how he would carry himself was definitely there). But Trunks was her _big _brother. He'd always been full grown in her mind. Tall enough to reach the top shelf, tall enough to tower over Dad, tall enough that she measured her own growth next to him. Now he barely would reach her knee.

Trunks just didn't exist in this size.

After a quick look in his grandparents' direction, he made straight for the strange woman, bypassing his grandmother's open arms. Apparently curiosity won out over food, because he ignored the plate of pancakes being offered to him and propped himself against Bra's chair.

"That's strange, little Trunks usually doesn't take to strangers nearly so well," said Bunny in that sing-song voice that was already hurting Bra's eardrums. How did that woman manage such a register?

_Don't be rude, she's your grandmother_. Oh yeah. Whoops.

"I'm not surprised," mused Dr. Brief. "Trunks always gets along with strong people. The boy respects power. Gets it from his father, I guess."

Bra tried not to make a face. Made sense. Trunks could smell weakness a mile away. It had made him somewhat of a bully when he was younger. He was _still _a bully at work, but he masked it better under a layer of condescension and charm.

"Strong, eh?" She bent over in her chair to look at the pudgy kid straight on. His eyes seemed to search her for something. His brow furrowed slightly like he was thinking really hard. Trying to figure her out. Trying to place her. She wondered for a moment if she smelled familiar, like his parents, wondered if he could see through her badly dyed hair and glasses. Trunks always was too damn smart for his own good.

"Glad you're okay," she whispered as he gripped her hand for balance, continuing to stare at her. "Even if it's just a little you, it's still kinda nice to know you're okay _somewhere_." A pause and a slight frown. "Or some _when_, at least."

Bra sniffed in an attempt to hold back tears and straightened up. "Cute grandkid you got," she said with what she hoped was a respectable amount of indifference. She'd make her father proud, she thought.

"Isn't he?" Bunny gushed before putting said grandchild in a highchair. "So smart and handsome. Just like Mr. Vegeta."

She raised an eyebrow, fork halfway to her mouth. "_Mr._ Vegeta?"

"Hmm? Oh, he's little Trunks' father. Very nice man. And _very_ handsome to boot. He's a keeper, that's for sure."

Bra turned to her grandfather in shock. Had this woman even _met_ her father? Good lord, if she said anything like this to his face, it was a wonder she was still alive.

Dr. Brief gave a slight shrug on his way out the door, though she was sure he seemed amused. Not sure what to say, Bra decided it would be better to give an ambiguous nod and get back to her pancakes.

While the older Briefs were fine with ignoring their quiet guest, Trunks continued to stare at her with something between awe and fascination. She tried to ignore him.

_Geez, Trunks didn't even pay this much attention to me when he used to babysit me…_

There was a somewhat bearable silence after that. It was a relief to Bra to be in the presence of people who had no expectations of her. Dr. Brief seemed to always be judging her. She doubted he did it consciously, but she could tell he was always measuring her up to her parents and to Mirai. Bulma, it seemed, was judging her too. She felt a lot more confident that she'd smoothed out her mother's curiosity, but she still had no desire to press her luck further.

Bunny would ask the occasional question, but never outright pried. She just seemed genuinely happy about… everything, really. Her grandson. Having someone to talk to. The weather. Her un-ending bubbliness wore on Bra's nerves, but the woman definitely gained a few points when she explained how she was the family cook.

_No wonder Dad never killed her…_

"Oh dear!" Both Bra and Trunks jumped slightly at their grandmother's outburst. "I forgot I have some dry cleaning to pick up!"

"Oookay…?" Bra ventured. _Am I supposed to respond?_

"Would you mind watching Trunks for me?"

"Uhh…" This was the weirdest sense of déjà vu she'd ever had. Shouldn't they be asking Trunks to watch _her_ and shouldn't _he_ be trying to think of a way out of it?

"Normally I'd take him with me, but he just _hates_ his car seat and I just hate to see him make such a fuss." As an afterthought, she added, "He really has taken quite a liking to you, dear. He won't be any trouble at all."

Bra looked at her brother. Then at Bunny. Then back to her brother. Then, thinking of how Trunks' teenage years had been wasted doing this same favor for their parents, she sighed and nodded. "Sure, I'd be happy to help out." Bunny beamed approval as she scurried across the kitchen to grab her sweater and car keys.

Suddenly she found herself alone with a miniature Trunks. This was, of course, _exactly_ how she had wanted her day to go.

"What do you think, kiddo?" She just couldn't bring herself to call him 'Trunks.' Trunks was somewhere hopefully not getting his face beaten in. Trunks would also be mortified if he were ever this pudgy again. This kid just was _not_ the right Trunks. "Wanna spend some time with me?"

She thought he'd whine and refuse, and she dreaded a tantrum, but to her surprise he nodded eagerly.

They spent the better part of the morning playing games. And not those ridiculous kid games like Candy Land, Go Fish or Tic-Tac-Toe where you have to be brain dead to not understand the rules. Trunks, little showoff that he was, instantly brought out games like Monopoly, Chess and, of course, Risk.

"You always this quiet, kid?" she asked as he looked between his Rook and his Bishop. He'd stayed to short phrases, at best making it to three words together.

His eyes went wide but he didn't say anything. He then proceeded to take her Queen…

After that, they didn't talk much unless whatever game they were playing necessitated it. But then again, they'd never needed to talk to communicate. Bra had always thought it was from growing up together. Years of enduring the same unconventional upbringing had somehow made words somewhat extraneous (unless arguing – oh boy, they could really dish out a lot of words if they were arguing). It seemed there was something more innate in it, though.

Bra was also surprised to find that, unlike most two year olds, Trunks hated when she let him win. He would make a sour face and once or twice threw the game board when he felt his victory was too cheaply earned. Instead she sighed and, as she always did when playing grown up Trunks, did her best to crush him. Well, maybe not _crush_ him into the fine powder she usually aimed for, but at the very least to win.

She was almost disappointed when Bunny came back and took over babysitting. Trunks was the best company she'd had since getting here.

Not that that was saying much.

* * *

><p>Very quickly they fell into a routine. She'd work in the morning, come in for brunch after Bulma and Vegeta had gone, then watch Trunks for a few hours while her grandparents ran whatever errands they needed to.<p>

As it always had been, her brother's presence was comforting. He was her little piece of home in the middle of complete chaos and strangeness. The one person she didn't have to pretend in front of, or worry about figuring out who she was. Just someone who was happy to have her around. Which meant she was more than content to fiddle with her work on the couch while he watched Yo Gabba Gabba.

And to her grandmother's (though not her grandfather's) surprise, her presence was equally calming on Trunks. He didn't throw his usual tantrums when he didn't get his way, and he learned quickly his strength and speed would be useless against her. So he would sit and do as he was told, playing quietly and occasionally turning to watch her as she puzzled over circuits. They still played games together, but Bra told him as gently as she could that she needed to work, and he usually didn't pout too much.

It might have been seven or eight days of this pattern when it happened. She was leaning back on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, and completely immersed in tinkering with the transistor. The useless glasses had slipped down to the very tip of her nose, but she was more interested in looking over them than through them anyway. It wasn't until she finished the patch job that she noticed Trunks standing at the edge of the couch and staring at her.

"You need something, kiddo?" More tinkering and a short spurt of electricity.

"Who you?"

She was a little startled by the question. He'd asked it repeatedly the first few days she'd watched him, once he had gotten over his shyness, but had learned her name well enough. She put down her tools and looked at him. "You know who I am, silly. I'm Bra, remember? I work for your grandpa."

"No," he said decisively, crossing his chubby arms across his chest. The scowl was a little _too_ familiar to her, and she raised an eyebrow at it.

_Apparently we learned _that_ pretty early_.

"Who you?" he repeated with more force.

"I'm Bra."

"_Who_?" he demanded again.

She stared at him a moment, hoping he wasn't asking what she thought he was. But this was Trunks, after all. Apparently even toddler Trunks was just as perceptive as the grown up version she was used to.

She chewed the inside of her cheek for a second. She knew a bad idea when she heard it. But she also knew when her brother wouldn't drop something. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes!" he shrieked with an equally excited jump. "Trunks keeps secrets! I good boy. No tells."

"You promise? This is a _very_ big secret. Not even Mommy or Daddy, okay?"

It probably wasn't a good idea to tell him, but there wasn't much damage he could do. Their parents would just assume he had become attached to her and had applied the only word he could understand for the relationship. She bit her lip before leaning over to whisper in his ear. He stood up on his tippy-toes in anticipation and held his breath so he could hear her better.

His eyes widened in shock as she said it. "Sister?" he repeated the word, trying out the sound of it and seeing if the idea matched what he thought of her.

"Big sister!" he cried in delight, clapping at the discovery. Clearly this went _very well_ with whatever he had suspected.

Bra made a face. "Hold on a second there, kiddo. I'm actually your _little_ sister."

Trunks seemed to ponder that for a second before bursting into giggles. "Too big! Too big! Big sister is _funny_."

She was quite sure her grimace at that moment would have the older Trunks in hysterics…


	7. Chapter 6: Trunks

**AN: **For those interested in seeing the other side. I didn't want to re-hash the entire prologue and first chapter, so it's a little more concise than the first run-through.

Thanks again to those of you who have taken the time to review/favorite/subscribe, especially to my repeat reviewers. Hope you enjoy the latest installment (next one probably won't be until next week).

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 6: Trunks**

Trunks had been suspicious early on. He'd woken up suddenly in the early morning by a strange sound. He was a relatively light sleeper, at least if he wasn't drinking, and it jolted him awake to hear it. Though of course it took him a few minutes to realize that what he was hearing was silence. No hum or buzz of electronics throughout the house. Just the sound of his breathing and the wind blowing through the curtains.

The strangeness of it had kept him from falling back asleep. His mom and sister's schedules were undoubtedly going to be thrown off by the power outage. He'd thought about waking them up, but decided it'd be a lot quieter at the office if he didn't. And while they blissfully slept through the freak blackout, he'd been up trying to figure out what had caused it.

_Random circuit failure my ass,_ he'd thought as he'd slammed down the phone after talking to a so-called technician.

Maybe other systems were prone to that sort of problem, but the Capsule Corps one was a work of art. It had taken him years perfecting the it (oh sure, his sister had said he was ridiculous to waste his time on it, but she spent _hours_ styling her hair every day – what the hell did _she_ know about good ways to spend your time?). He was half convinced it could survive a nuclear holocaust - not that he was looking to put that idea to the test. So it had bothered him to no end. If it weren't for all the damn meetings and business they had to deal with today, he would have happily spent the day pouring over technical schematics and standing knee deep in wires.

But somehow being the president of your own company meant you didn't have time to do whatever you wanted with said company. Go figure.

His nerves were already frayed by the time Bra got to work. Late, as predicted. Giving her hell about it was just for fun rather than any sort of actual annoyance. If he'd actually cared, he'd have gotten her up or called her himself.

Any sense of hope he'd held for the rest of the day being tolerable vanished when Gloria had come in with the print outs from Astronomy.

It should have meant nothing. It _was_ nothing. It was just a fucking shooting star or some fucked beyond recognition satellite.

But why was his gut telling him that it was anything _but_?

* * *

><p>"Then why bring <em>me<em>?" Bra nearly screeched.

It was physically painful to him when Bra or their mother took that tone. Something akin to nails on a chalkboard but more grating and terribly more unpleasant.

He loved her to death, but Dende help him she was annoying.

Trunks tried to calm her down. That was his job as her big brother (well, there was that and giving her a hard time about everything). Be the reasonable one that would take care of her. This was new to her, and he had to be sympathetic to that. The idea of fighting to save the world was just some abstract thing she'd heard about and sort of seen in action. She'd never faced the possibility of actually having to do it.

And even as Trunks assured her that's not what they were about to do, part of him new better…

* * *

><p>He woke up with a pounding headache. His first impression was that he'd been hit by his father. And a pissed off Vegeta at that. Nothing else hurt that much.<p>

The urgency underlying the pain made him think twice though. If his father had punched him so hard he'd passed out, the fight was over. End of story. But he was incredibly tense, still on edge. Whatever had scrambled his brain was still a threat.

Trunks tried to force his way to his feet but instantly fell back to his knees, resting his head on the ground as beads of sweat formed on his brow. He was now, on top of everything, incredibly dizzy and nauseous.

_Don't hurl,_ he begged himself as he tried to at least lift up his torso to look around. Still resting heavily on his hands, he did manage to sit back on his legs, though the effort was considerable. He was in bad shape and he knew it. Hell, Bra could take him out now without a thought.

_Oh crap, Bra!_

Panic overtook him at the thought of what might have happened to his little sister. It gave him the adrenaline rush he needed to spring to his feet. Somehow he made it a couple steps forward before he felt someone's strong grasp on his right arm, easily supporting his weight.

"Take it easy, you're fine."

His brain still fried, he let the familiar voice calm him and lower him gently to the ground. It was a few minutes - at least a few, he wasn't firmly grounded in the moment yet and so he couldn't be sure how long it was - before he attempted to focus on anything outside of his pounding headache.

He looked up and met the concerned royal blues that so perfectly mirrored his own.

"Hey there, little brother," she said, a smirk obvious in her tone.

He took a moment to think about it, trying to put the words in the logical order, only to find that they were _not_ in one. "... _What_?" he choked. _I must have been hit harder than I thought._..

"You'll understand in a couple weeks. So how you feelin', kiddo?"

He started slightly at that.

Kiddo? Why did that sound familiar?

His mom had used a lot of pet names for him as a child - squirt, honey, sweetheart, sweetie, baby, cutie pie and some infinitely more embarrassing ones (he was pretty sure there was a "snuggly bear" thrown in there once or twice). His father had lovingly referred to him as both brat and boy, and on those lucky occasions when his father actually called him by name, it was usually followed by a scolding and/or beating. But neither had ever called him kiddo. But it definitely meant something to him…

"I'm guessing not so good then?"

He continued to stare in her general direction, his vision moving in and out of focus as his mind did the same. Eventually he realized he was probably supposed to say something. "Where am I?"

"Good question, but the wrong one. 'Where' doesn't mean anything in this story."

His knee jerk reaction was to snap at her for not making any sense, but the sudden burst of anger sent a sharp burst of pain through his skull. He moaned and cradled his head while he tried to fight through it.

"Take your time, kiddo," she soothed. "That's something we have plenty of."

The only way Trunks could focus was to think of things one at a time. To go through what he wanted to find out.

Are you hurt? Where are we? What's going on? Are we in danger? Why does my head hurt? Did you tell Mom and Dad what happened? Is Earth safe?

But the first one to leave his lips was probably the least useful. "Why did you call me little brother?"

"Because there's as many years between us as there always are, just you're on the other end of it."

"Bra, no offense, but what does that even _mean_?"

She shrugged. "Don't worry about it. You'll figure it out when you need to, I guess. Til then, it doesn't really matter."

"Shouldn't _I_ get a say in what matters?" he growled, but he was just pleased this was taking his mind off the pain.

"Trunks, get over yourself. I'm here to help and trust me when I say you'll be exactly _where_ you need to be _when_ you need to be."

Cryptic at best, but she'd said the key words. _Trust me._ Fine. He could trust her. That was well within his current limits. But if she wouldn't answer _that_, she should be able to at least tell him _something_.

"What happened?"

"We were attacked. Namoans," she nearly spit the name. "Saiyans wiped out those blue bastards. Well, most of them at least. Centuries ago. Even Dad didn't have anything to do with it. Go figure, right?"

He was feeling well enough that he could sit up straight. He took advantage of it by looking her over. She seemed... different. She was keeping her distance, something he should've picked up on earlier. Instead of sitting next to him, she was about fifteen feet away. If it had been anyone else, he might have been suspicious. But everything about her was so _Bra_. Her hair, her eyes, her stance, her voice, how annoying she was, everything. The clothes were a little different, but he could hardly keep up with that anyway.

Really, she looked the same. But just as much as she looked the same, he got this sense that she was different. In what way, he couldn't say. It was just as if she was something… more than she had always been. If that made sense.

_Just because it makes sense now, won't mean it will when you're thinking straight,_ he warned himself, but filed away the thought just in case.

Not sure how to broach that topic just yet, he kept going with the current one. "How do you know this, did you talk to them?"

She looked at him for a moment before answering. At first he thought she was just considering how to answer him, but a darkness clouded her eyes and she gave him a hard look. It reminded him of when their father spoke of anything before Earth, and even some of the things since. "No. Not in so many words."

"What did they do?" he asked in alarm. Maybe that was the difference. Maybe they'd done something to her. If they had so much as touched her he would-

She shook her head and raised a hand as if the gesture could stop his line of thought. "From where I'm standing, the damage's been done. Don't worry about it. It's been long enough for me to get over it."

"Long enough...? Bra, how long was I out-"

"They're strong," she interrupted, clearly sidestepping his interest. "But we're stronger. Remember that. They need an edge. This," she pulled a device out of her jacket pocket and showed it to him, "is how they get that edge."

"What is that? A gun? They fucking shot us with a _gun_?" That was probably _the_ most retarded thing he'd ever heard. He'd never been shot before, but he was pretty sure it would piss him off more than actually injure him. No way could it come close to what he was currently feeling.

"It's more like... a very complicated teleporter. But it can't move you through space, only through time." She didn't give him the time to let the words sink in, but pushed forward. "They send you so far forward that you're too late to stop them, or so far back that you end up fucking up things all on your own. _Especially_ if you don't know shit about time travel. You," she pointed the device his way. He supposed if he were more human, his instincts would have been to duck or at least flinch, but he stared down the barrel like it was nothing more than a Nerf gun or a Super Soaker. "You they sent forward."

"Forward?" Did that mean that this was the... the future? That might make the 'little brother' comment make more sense, but it was still hard to believe. Hell, he couldn't really believe all he'd heard about Mirai Trunks traveling through time. The thought that _he'd_ do it was even more absurd.

If his head didn't hurt so much, he was sure this would make a lot more sense. All he knew is he was missing something very obvious. "Wait." He could slowly feel his brain making the connections, putting the pieces together. "What do you mean _me_? What'd they do to _you_?"

She ignored him as her thumb flicked a switch on the butt of the gun. "Luckily for you, I can send you back."

"Bra, what did they do to you?" Trunks tried not to sound demanding, but he couldn't hide his worry. "Please, just tell me-"

"Stay near the med bay for the next few weeks. Make sure someone's there. That's all I can say." She shrugged apologetically, never lowering the weapon. "Sorry, but that's all I said the first time, so I can't really say something else this time. These things are tricky like that."

He saw her finger tighten slightly on the trigger. His sister was about to shoot him with an alien gun but all he wonder what the hell those bastards did to her. "Bra," he started, but she shook her head.

"I'm fine Trunks. You wanna do me a favor, kill that blue bitch when you get back."

He could feel the air charging around them. He was too weak to stop her or even get out of the way. He desperately wanted to _do _something, but her words echoed in his ears.

_Trust me._

He didn't even blink as the weapon fired, as its light absorbed his world for the second time that day and he fell blissfully into unconsciousness.


	8. Chapter 7: Not Quite

**AN: **Another short (ish) chapter. Thought it was time to bring in daddy dearest. Don't worry, he will be much more involved next chapter ;) Enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 7: Not Quite**

If Bulma had been suspicious when Bra had started working at Capsule Corps, she wasn't sure what to expect when her mom walked in on her, unsupervised, playing chess with her son. But to her surprise and her mother's credit, Bulma didn't seem overly concerned with the situation. Surprised, yes, but far from upset. As it turned out, free babysitting was free babysitting, and the fact that Trunks behaved meant Bulma was _not_ going to turn it down. There was the added benefit of Bulma giving her more space at the office as well, though she'd occasionally stop by for the much dreaded "smalltalk." She'd even offered to set Bra up with one of the engineers in her department, an idea that Bra hopefully didn't seem too repulsed by.

Vegeta was, of course, nowhere to be seen. Which suited Bra just fine. Her father was in general pretty solitary, and the fewer parent-child interactions she had to survive, the better.

Spending time in the house was the best part of her day. Dealing with Trunks, even a whiny Trunks, was much less frustrating than trying to figure out the alien tech. Replicating the energy signature would require a huge power source - most likely she'd end up using her own ki given the lack of adequate materials in this time - and even then, she was running out of ideas on how to actually _control_ the damn thing. Even if she perfectly replicated the energy beam and got it to send someone through time, she had no way of picking _what time_ they got sent to.

It drove her crazy thinking of ways to play around with the wavelength and frequency of the blast, the only variables she could easily control, and how she could ever possibly _test_ the damn thing with any reliability. She very nearly broke her grandfather's laptop one night in a fit of bitter disappointment.

Two weeks. Two fucking weeks and all she had was a damn energy beam that couldn't fry a piece of toast. How was she ever supposed to get _home_?

Home. There was a loaded word. It had taken on new meaning lately. She'd always considered Capsule Corps and the Compound to be her home. When she went abroad, she might expand that designation to West City or Japan as a whole. But she was in those places now, had never actually left them, and she couldn't be _less_ home. Home now meant her brother, her parents, her friends. Her life. She wouldn't feel half so alone if just _one_ of them were here with her now.

_Well, it could be worse. You could be stuck here with Hercules Satan._

She shuddered at the very idea.

* * *

><p>At first Bra was surprised it had taken this long to see him. She knew he was around, keeping to his training regime as evidenced by the rise and fall of his ki signature. It still followed the pattern she was so used to, the one that would lull her to sleep if she went to bed early and that would greet her in the morning no matter how early she got up. Really, it was just another piece of home in the background of a new world. But she wasn't really surprised that her father and Trunks were the most consistently soothing parts of her life. Some things never change.<p>

And then one day he was there. She walked into the kitchen, absorbed in an article her grandfather had recommended (interesting suggestions but they were all theoretical - what she needed was _practical_ applications relating to time travel), and couldn't help but stop short when she noticed the familiar ki opposite her. Silently she cursed herself for not paying more attention as she eyed the man in front of her.

Vegeta was obviously annoyed about something, though it could very well be a byproduct of the time she was in. She suspected, however, that his current annoyance was centered around none other than her mother. Seemed around the right time for awkward relationship-related squabbles, and there was no one else around who could illicit such a look from the Saiyan prince. Well, perhaps Gohan or Chichi if they were here, but Trunks wasn't old enough to be that much of a nuisance. She wasn't even sure if he'd started _training _the toddler yet.

Yes, she decided. They must have argued. Nothing else would cause him to break his routine. He should've been in the GC hours ago.

Slowly, she took him in, sizing him up in comparison to the man who had raised her.

He was very much the man she had always known. Proud demeanor. Looked at everything and everyone like he was above it all. Complete disinterest in anything he didn't think worth his notice. But there was something off, aside from his mood. Something that made the familiar man before her a complete stranger to her.

She'd heard the stories about him when she was a child. She knew what her father had been like in another life. Before Earth. Before her mother. More importantly, before Trunks and her. But she'd never _seen_ that man. It was easier for her to picture them as being two separate people. The one who killed lots of people. The one who was her father. Sometimes those men intersected, but it was never more than for a fleeting moment before he caught himself. This one, this man standing before her, hadn't fully managed that transition. The dangerous look in his eye like he expected an attack at any moment, the unease he clearly felt in what would later be his home. His obvious indecision about how to act around her mother, who had attempted a kiss on the cheek before leaving for work.

In awe, she realized what she was seeing. This man _wasn't_ her father. This was the man who would _become_ her father.

She reminded herself of that repeatedly as he stared at her with obvious dislike before turning away and ignoring her. _So,_ she thought with more than a hint of amusement, _this is what it's like to be everyone _but_ me._

Only when she sat down did she realize her father's presence put her at a disadvantage. She did most of her eating at these little breakfast gatherings with Trunks and her grandparents. And while none of them particularly cared how much she ate, she was pretty sure her father would notice a Saiyan appetite when he saw one.

So there they were, in their little family reunion. Vegeta indulged in stack after stack of pancakes, plates and plates of eggs and bacon, and orange juice by the pitcher full. Trunks matched his father's pace as best he could, but spilled a good half of what he threw in his mouth onto the floor. Dr. Brief kept giving Bra sympathetic looks as she pushed around her first – and most likely only – serving of scrambled eggs. And Bunny Brief smiling, oblivious to the subtleties of the situation.

Dende, this was not going to be a good day.

* * *

><p>It wasn't until later that her frayed nerves finally burst. She'd barely spent an hour with Trunks before she was dismissed (yes, fucking <em>dismissed<em>) by Bulma when Chichi arrived with the young Son men. Bra tried not to fume as she stalked back to the labs.

Fine. Trunks and Goten could have their little play date. Chichi and Bulma could have their girl time. Gohan could actually get the chance to spar with her father. Which left Bra alone, with no way to work out her excess energy and frustration, working on the damn impossible task of getting home.

_Fine_, she reiterated again as she gave a kick to a corner as she rounded it. She didn't bother to check, but she could feel the wall denting at the pressure.

_You're being pathetic Bra,_ she scolded. _They don't owe you shit. Who the fuck are you to them? Random chick who bums food off them? _

She snarled slightly as she pushed through the double doors into the lab and realized how ridiculous she was acting.

_You're getting soft. Dad wouldn't approve. Stop worrying about them. They are NOT your family, aside from the biological debt you owe them. Ignore the distractions, get back to work. _

She paced the length of the lab a couple times before she had calmed down enough to get back to work.

_You will count to five and then you will let. This. Shit. Go._

_One .._

_Two… _

_Three… _

_Four… _

_Five._

Like a switch going off, she was all business.

She poured over the schematics, looking for anything she might have missed. On the plus side, she felt the beam would actually be stable enough to allow firing it. But this was a critical stage in the project. If the first test went well, she was confident she could be out of there by the end of the week. If it didn't… Well, she might be back to square one.

_Do NOT fuck this up,_ she thought. _You've got this. You are a fucking genius. Now do your Mom proud and get the hell out of here._

Bra, like her brother, normally didn't bother with the usual safety precautions. Anything they worked on, though potentially dangerous to the human staff, wouldn't cause them any serious problems even if the worst were to happen. But an experimental weapon based on alien tech that she hadn't had Trunks or Bulma look over first… Yeah, that was kind of sketchy.

"Guess I can afford to take the extra time," she muttered. "Time I have plenty of."

It probably took a good half hour to set it up, another hour to double check everything with the weapon. She nibbled on some zebra cakes as she started up the recording devices and booted up the weapon's targeting and energy systems.

"Right." She stared at everything, hands on her hips, somewhere between admiring her handiwork and scarred shitless about actually going through with it. Chewing her lip, she slowly reached one hand forward to the trigger. It curled around it but she hesitated before pulling.

"Don't be a baby. Just _do_ it already."

Between her actually pulling the trigger and the subsequent blast knocking her against the far wall, even her Saiyan speed didn't catch it actually happening.

It took a little while for her to understand why she was covered in books and papers and probably more than a few pieces of debris. Then, as embarrassing as it was to admit it, she had a slight temper tantrum.

Bra screamed in she couldn't count how many emotions before throwing off the bookshelves that had fallen on her. "FuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK!" she screeched so loud the pieces of glass on the ground actually shook. She was halfway powered up to Super Saiyan when she instantly cut off her own ki.

Luckily her good sense had taken over before she powered up too much (and thankfully her father was too busy sparring to notice the power fluctuation). Unfortunately… well, a quick look around the smoldering remains of the test station and she didn't really have to get into the "unfortunately" category.

As she slumped down against she wasn't even sure what the damn piece of rubble had been and curled into a ball, she wondered if she was about to start crying or tearing her hair out.

* * *

><p>The next day she burst into her grandfather's office with all the subtly of a steam train. Without much ceremony, she threw a pile of papers in front of him and started pacing, apparently expecting his immediate attention.<p>

He put aside the bowl of noddles he'd been eating and picked up the first few papers, squinting through his glasses. "And what's this?"

"More purchase orders. I'm out of parts." Still pacing.

"Out of parts already?"

She stopped just long enough to look at him with obvious annoyance, though he suspected it wasn't directed at him, "Well, the last set recently blew up in face. Literally."

"I see."

He tried to read over the lists, but his attention kept drifting back to her. The impatience and pacing he had initially taken to be her father's, but it didn't fit. While Vegeta was prone to making outrageous demands regarding the lab and parts, he was more the type to calmly stare at you menacingly. If he _did_ pace, it was always five steps forward, five back. Like a damn metronome. But Bra was much more agitated. Her step was uneven, her attention not on the world around her. He could almost _see_ her thoughts going a mile a minute, could _feel_ her anxiety in the way she moved. Actually, when he thought about it, her inability to remain still when this worked up reminded him much more of his daughter.

"Would you stop that?" he asked politely. She stared at him blankly. "The pacing. It's distracting."

Her mouth made a silent "Oh" before she plopped down on the nearest chair.

His focus now back on the papers in front of him, he whistled as he looked at the sheer amount she was asking for. The price didn't bother him – hell, he'd spent that much already just on office supplies for the company – but it seemed odd that he was apparently re-ordering exactly what she'd asked for the first time.

"Didn't you already purchase these items?"

"Like I said, they blew up."

He took in the slightly fringed edges of her jacket but didn't comment. "Well, it might have something to do with the fact that you ordered a good deal from both Jericho Electric and TMZ United."

"Why?" Her anger seemed to abate as she raised an eyebrow in genuine curiosity.

"Well, to put it gently, they're terrible providers. They don't have the money or the resources to make quality products."

She frowned. "Well, they're golden when I'm from, and have been for years, so I guess I figured they always were."

Dr. Brief chuckled slightly. "If only. I know the owners, and they're good people, just don't have the resources to be at our level."

"You should invest of them. They're good companies. Maybe they just need a sugar daddy like Capsule Corps to get them up to snuff."

He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. "I'll think about it."

And he wondered, once his would-be granddaughter had left him to his work, if this was history in the making.


	9. Chapter 8: Suspicions

**AN:** Yaay a new chapter! Thanks as always to those of you who have taken the time to review. I appreciate the feedback, especially when you help me find errors in my work ;) Makes editing a lot easier.

Not much to say about this chapter. I feel like Vegeta doesn't get enough credit for being observant. Yeah, Bulma's the genius, but she's a ditzy genius as opposed to a Sherlock Holmes type genius. My two cents, anyway.

Vegeta is probably my all time favorite character in DBZ, but I find him hard to characterize when writing him. Let me know how he turns out.

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 8: Suspicions**

Vegeta didn't handle change very well. He did not care to see his life change, nor did he much care for the idea of changing himself. Maybe it was because the changes he experienced had usually been at a catastrophic, planet-changing level. But whatever the reason, he just didn't like it.

Even so, there was a lot that was below the threshold of his notice. Bulma changing her hairstyle was below that threshold. Her insufferable mother changing the lunch menu. Trunks learning a new word. A visit from Kakarot's spawn interrupting his routine. All of these were changes that he could ignore without a thought.

So it came as a shock to him when he realized the girl bothered him. She was not worthy of his attention in any form. He had yet to learn her name. He was fairly certain he could not pick her out of a group of humans if required to do so. Nothing she did attracted attention to herself, aside from her mere presence in the house.

Sure, she watched the boy, but she was hardly alone in that task. None of the other menial workers Bulma had employed to do that same task had been of interest to him, and this one certainly was no different. The boy, though still young, was more than able to handle himself against the flimsy human women Bulma tended to employee as "babysitters."

But she bothered him.

Their first encounter had been less than memorable. All he could remember is that she was not visibly disfigured and that she had very generic coloring. He also found it odd that her clothing fitted so poorly. Most females on this planet - Bulma included - seemed to prefer remarkably tight clothing that accentuated even the smallest of curves. This girl's coat and shirt were far too big. The skirt was of a more appropriate size, but sat poorly on her frame. It seemed made for a different body type, perhaps for a younger girl. Her glasses were very plain and did not seem very feminine. And her leggings were an obnoxious shade of red that would be blinding if they were in better condition. Overall, it looked like she had put together an outfit out of random scraps of material she'd happened to have lying around.

It was a terrible amount of detail to remember about someone who was barely a blip on his radar. The only reason he even remembered her clothing at all is because of her boots - perfect replicas of his own. He was disgusted to think that mere humans were wearing anything of Saiyan design, but from what he had understood from Bulma's ramblings, such boots were quite popular. And expensive.

It did not make sense for this girl's mish-mash of clothing to include designer boots. And boots that looked well worn at that. Bulma had plenty of "expensive" shoes and she would go out of her away to avoid mud and puddles and anything else that could scuff up the damn things. But these boots could stand to be polished or at the very least cleaned.

Vegeta was no expert on Earth fashions, as he was frequently reminded by Bulma. He found most of her outfits appalling, and told her so, but that generally ended with a shouting match and finding other sleeping accommodations. Even so, he found that this girl's outfit bothered him more and more each time he saw it. It was strange, even by Earth standards, and what was more of a surprise was that she never changed. She genuinely seemed to not possess any other clothing.

It was probably those damn boots that had made him waste so much effort thinking about that damnable girl. Why should he care if she did not fit in or if her clothes were odd?

When he realized he had actually acknowledged, albeit only to himself, her existence, his determination to dislike her began.

* * *

><p>If he'd only seen her the one time, it wouldn't have mattered. He could ignore the amount of thought he'd already invested in figuring her out and just move on. But of course, she now seemed to always be around. If he ever came into the Compound between the hours of 11 and 3, she was there with the boy. If he went to the labs between the hours of 6 and 8, she was likely to be engaged in conversation with either Bulma or the old man (and he noted that she did not look pleased to be speaking to either of them).<p>

It was sometime during the week, or so he gathered since Bulma's ki had her located in her lab, when he overloaded the Gravity Chamber. Honestly, could that woman not be bothered to build something that would not break every few days?

Torn between going to complain and eating, the smell wafting out of the kitchen window made the decision for him.

He had gone in expecting Bulma's mother but instead found the girl leaning over the stove, stirring some concoction that reminded him vaguely of Kakarot's banshee of a wife and singing softly.

"More! Again!" Trunks clapped when the verse ended, and she started singing again. A tune that sounded familiar, but even to his ears she sounded like she was mumbling.

Vegeta was not sure what to make of the scene before him, and just stared dumbly at the two of them while the girl continued to amuse his young son.

When she finally turned to give Trunks a taste she visibly jumped when she saw Vegeta. "Geez! Way to sneak up on people!"

He bristled at being addressed this way. Sneering, he nearly spat, "It's not sneaking up on people when it's your own house."

"Last I checked, it was the _Brief_ household. Don't exactly remember _your_ name being listed anywhere."

Vegeta tried not to flush and instead ground his teeth. "What are you doing, girl? Do you have nothing better to do with your time than waste it with a child?"

"I'm making a snack for Trunks. He was hungry and lunch isn't for another couple hours." He opened his mouth to reply but she interrupted. "Why, you wanna take over watching him for a bit?"

In reply, he turned his back on both of them and stormed out.

* * *

><p>The poorly crafted drones that Bulma kept trying to pawn off on him as training devices had been destroyed. Again.<p>

Un-fucking-acceptable.

While the bar may be lowered and he'd have to settle for beating Kakarot's teenage son into the ground, he still required adequate training. Loathe as he was to admit it, the boy had some skill.

He was already halfway to her office, the lifeless form of a disemboweled robot being dragged behind him, when he felt a huge spike in energy. It surprised him enough that he stopped his march and momentarily forgot the scathing comments he'd prepared.

Without a second thought, he followed the energy signature even after it had disappeared as rapidly as it had flared up. He burst into what he had been told was the old man's lab, but instead of the crazy scientist, he saw the brunette girl from the house moving rapidly from fire to fire with a fire extinguisher.

What appeared to be a human gun was glowing red hot at the edge of the damage, undoubtedly the cause. He guessed the energy weapon had been fired outward, scorching anything in its path. The energy he felt, though it felt like someone's ki, must have come from there. Surprisingly, though, the greatest amount of damage to the physical structure of the room was form _behind_ the direction the gun was pointed. There was a large dent that looked like it had been pounded into the thick concrete walls. Right next to where the girl had probably been standing.

He stared at the hole and wondered if she had nearly been killed by some ricocheting debris.

"Problems?" he called to the girl, his amused tone reverberating off the walls.

The girl shot him a scowl before quickly seeming to catch herself and quickly skewing her features into an inexpressive pallet that only hinted at annoyance. "None that concern you," she replied coolly. It almost passed for embarrassed.

Almost.

He stared at her, again at a loss as to what to make, but she had already gotten back to damage control. Without another word to each other, he simply turned and left to find Bulma.

* * *

><p>After a while, no doubt because of his own annoyance at the fact that the girl was even on his radar at all, he began trying to provoke her into arguments. That was one way she differed from the others. She did not react to him properly. His dismissal of her did not offend, his countenance did not invoke fear, and his harsh words were met with indifference. Quite frankly, there were only two people he had ever met that infuriated him so much with so little effort - one of them was now dead and the other considered herself his mate.<p>

If he could just get this strange girl to get upset at him and react like a proper pathetic human, or even better to cower in fear, then she would no longer be worthy of interest. He could go back to triumphantly ignoring her and her presence would be as easily ignored as everyone else's.

But it turned out she was as challenging to argue with as Bulma.

Bulma was a mental challenge, able to dish out as much as he could and never seemed to get tired of it. Even if he lost the fight (though did it count as losing if you don't openly acknowledge the other person has gotten the better of you?) he was satisfied with the effort.

This girl, she was _impossible_ to provoke.

Insults to her family, insults about her appearance, insults to her intelligence, snide remarks about anything and everything she did. He was damn sure he would've provoked even a fool like Kakarot by now. But no. Each time, she'd merely brush off his scathing criticism and meet his eyes with a look of defiance and amusement in hers that he found all the more infuriating.

Trying as he might, she simply would not rise to the bait.

* * *

><p>"<em>Woman<em>! _Woman_! _Food_!" the boy demanded. "_Food_ _for_ Trunks!"

Vegeta kept his back turned but smiled slightly in amusement as he rifled through the fridge. Bulma absolutely _hated_ that Trunks had taken up his father's habit of calling her "woman."

"Just a minute, sweetie," she called and he heard the clatter of dishes being prepared.

"Trunks _want food! Woman! Now! Food!_" She might have ignored the last time, but Vegeta was sure he was going to get an earful now. A screeching earful that he would pretend to not find hilarious.

"Yes, yes, sweetie. '_Womannowfood.'_ Here, baby," Bulma said in exasperation as she set the plate and sippy cup in front of him.

"Thank you, Mama!"

"Oh, you're welcome honey."

Vegeta wasn't sure what to make of this. Bulma never ever _ever_ let anything go. Things he couldn't even remember doing were constantly being thrown back at him as if they were the worst crimes imaginable. And she most certainly never let _this_ go, especially if it would be so easy to yell at Vegeta because he was right _there_. What could possibly make that woman drop the issue as if it hadn't happened? Was this some new strategy? Perhaps trying to guilt him into not calling her 'woman'? What was different about this time...?

Dropping whatever food he'd managed to pile onto his plate, he snapped up and turned to face his mate and child. "What did he just say?" he barked.

"Huh? He said 'thank you.' Why," she asked, her voice taking on that sing-song quality that always signaled she was about to tease him, "Are you upset your son has more manners than you?"

"I don't give a damn about _that._ What did he say_ before_?"

Bulma looked at him in surprise. Vegeta certainly had his moods, but this seemed an odd reaction to such an everyday event. She was getting better at reading him, but she was at a loss about... whatever this was, and it took her a moment to even realize she hadn't said anything yet.

"Answer me!" Vegeta nearly yelled.

"I... I don't know, Vegeta. He said something like _womanfoodnow_ or something. I don't know. Why?" He didn't answer her. The anger that had momentarily erupted had instantly drained away and left nothing but a look of complete shock on his face. "Why? Vegeta, what's going on? What's wrong?"

But he was no longer looking at her. Instead he was staring in utter disbelief at Trunks, as if he were some sort of strange creature rather than their son. Slowly, he turned back to her, realizing he was not exactly acting like himself but unable to force his usual disinterested mien to cover the lapse. "I'm fine. Nothing is wrong."

"Vege-"

"I said everything is fine, woman!" he snapped. "I will be in the Gravity Chamber. Do _not_ disturb me."

He stalked out and made straight for the Chamber, his feet pounding the ground with an intensity that matched his darkening mood. It wasn't until he had securely locked the door and turned the gravity up to an uncomfortable 300x that he allowed himself to process what had just happened.

His blood ran cold as he remembered the words his son had said. _Woman. Now. Food. Want. For. _He wouldn't have even noticed, the words so familiar to him that they could never be out of place. It was only Bulma's reaction, or rather her lack of a reaction to them, that allowed him to make the connection. To understand them for what they were.

His son, without him ever having taught the boy a single word, had just spoken Saiyan.


	10. Chapter 9: One Down

**AN: **I hate to go back and forth between different perspectives, but I'm not quite ready to go back to Bra yet. Especially since I'm having fun with Trunks and Vegeta :)

Hopefully the "Saiyan" in the last chapter wasn't too confusing. I figured since it was Vegeta's POV, I would put it in "English" since he would understand it. If it were Bulma's POV it would've just sounded like gobbledygook. And don't worry, I'll get to why Bra would be so careless about that.

I keep starting what I intend to be short chapters, but they hit the two thousand word mark before I know it. Anyway, let me know what you think. As always, thanks for reading and reviewing, and enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 9: One Down**

It was like feeling yourself dissolve and then re-solidify somewhere else. But it wasn't _somewhere_ else, but rather _somewhen_ else, and somehow you were able to tell the difference. As if that makes any sense. But he could _feel_ it happening. He could feel his molecules coming apart and traveling across a long distance while staying completely still, wrapping in and through themselves, moving rapidly even as they didn't move at all, and then reassembling themselves in - he hoped - the right order. As as he came back into being, this time he took comfort in the fact that he knew, at least somewhat, what had happened to him.

It took Trunks a moment to adjust. The fading light of a few minutes ago was replaced by the bright noon sun, and the pain he had anticipated never came. If anything, he felt better than before Bra had shot him in the chest, which was about as counter intuitive as it could get.

Not that this situation was fitting within his perceived "norms" for alien encounters.

He stood there for awhile, unsure of his balance, listening to the wind blow through the grass and the distant chatter of birds. But soon it was something else drawing his attention back towards the trees.

"_Why hasn't anything changed yet?_"

Trunks started slightly. He had assumed he was alone, but it was the harshness of the voice and the strangeness of the words that surprised him more than anything else. The language didn't immediately make sense, but the sense of what was said came through to him automatically. He wondered if this was one of the languages he'd heard while in space with Goku. He'd always had a knack for picking up that sort of thing.

"I don't know." The words were coming to him as though through a fog as his brain automatically processed them into something he could understand. He froze in place, knowing enough that he needed to stay fucking silent.

"Well, you'd better find out." The first voice again. Much deeper, more resonating. Probably the male who'd tried to punch his brains out. "This just doesn't _happen_ – you can't send someone back that far without them changing _something._ The girl should be dead by now, destroyed by her own meddling."

Bra. Dead. Destroyed.

These words did not belong together. He tried to suppress a growl as his mind filled in the blanks: _If Bra is dead, you both will be destroyed._

He started edging his way up the hill, back to the woods. He strangled his ki and hoped he'd be able to power back up fast enough. Hell, if he could catch his father off guard like this, he should be able to do it to these assholes.

"What do you want me to say?" the second voice spat back. Not as deep and somehow more hollow. Possibly a female, but the throaty quality made him unsure. "There are no detectable changes in the timeline."

"That's _impossible_. Her _being_ back there _is_ a change to the timeline."

"The scanner says-"

"Then you're not reading it right!"

Their heads were starting to come into view over the peak of the hill. Just the two that he could see. Not turned this way. Tall. Blue.

_Dead,_ Trunks added, a familiar smirk beginning to pull at his lips.

"Jak'na!" The man, who had started to pace, flinched and turned back to the woman. She was barely an inch shorter than him but her tone radiated authority. If Trunks were a betting man – and he was – she was the one in charge. "If you're so worried, go back and finish her off yourself. I can handle the rest here until you get back."

Their torsos came into view as Trunks continued to sneak forward. Automatically he began assessing them for weaknesses. Bruised thigh. Protruding nose, easy to break. Legs relatively thin, more likely to throw a punch than a kick. Armor on chest, most likely for vital organs. Work the ribs. Head unprotected. Either careless, or their brain could take a lot of hits. He hoped the former.

The male stiffened slightly. Slowly, he nodded and the woman took something out of her pocket. Trunks stopped short as he realized what it was. It was a gun. One that looked almost identical to the one Bra had used on him.

To his surprise, the woman adjusted the settings and then pointed it at her partner. Then their words registered.

Go back and finish her off.

Bra.

Dead.

Destroyed.

Instinctively, he dashed forward, ki channeling up through him and giving him lightning fast speed. A ball of energy formed in his right hand and was milliseconds from being unleashed.

But his charge got their attention. The male turned to him, their eyes locking. And as the shot fired, consuming him in a blinding mass of golden blue light, he smiled, fucking _smiled_ at Trunks.

Trunks roared as he fired his own shot, but the male simply vanished from existence as the blast decimated the row of trees behind him. He allowed himself a small roar of frustration before rounding on the female.

Bra's earlier request to kill the 'blue bitch' made his heart pick up speed. That was something he could still do.

"Don't move a muscle!" the woman snarled, finger still on the trigger of the weapon now pointed at him. Again. Third time today and the only reason he hesitated now was because he knew what would happen if he was hit by the damn thing.

He kept his battle stance but probed her eyes for something, anything, he could use. And then he saw it. The beads of sweat beginning to form at the collar of her neck, the nervousness in her eyes leaking through her calm façade. And most importantly, the way her fingers weren't tensed to pull the trigger.

Instead of attacking, he pushed his ki towards her in a wave. It rolled off him like a blast of wind and caused the woman to stumble back. The gun was thrown from her hand, and Trunks materialized next to it, catching it easily and crushing it in his hand before throwing the remains to the side.

It wasn't until later that he realized that was probably a stupid idea.

The woman eyed him wearily. She was clearly unsure whether to attack or flee, but it seemed either way she wasn't willing to turn her back on him. They edged warily around each other, probing for the most obvious weakness. When none became apparent, Trunks decided to take a lesson from his mother.

If you can't beat them in a fight, wear them down by talking to them.

"I'm guessing your little toy was out of batteries. Why else wouldn't you have fired at me?"

Her step didn't falter and her poker face didn't slip. She either did not understand or was not willing to give anything away.

_That's alright, I can be patient._

"It must be unfortunate for your partner. You sending him into the past and having no way to contact him."

This time her eyes narrowed slightly. Okay, she can understand English. Progress.

He was about to keep going when she broke her silence. "How do you know?"

Trunks blinked a few times before he realized she was speaking English. Her accent was ridiculous. It reminded him of a bad horror movie with wealthy nobles speaking in Transylvanian accents and claiming not to be vampires. Strangely, she was the first alien he had ever heard who could not speak perfect English. Which was pretty fucking ridiculous, now that he thought about it.

And he just couldn't help it. He laughed.

She merely snarled at him, baring her teeth and almost hissing, assuming his laughter was at her question instead of her garbled English. He couldn't help notice that she did in fact have very vampire like fangs… in addition to about fifty other small, pointed teeth. If it came to a fight (and let's face it, it would), he hoped she wasn't a biter.

"How did you get back here? Jak'na sent you away. How did you get back? How do you know where the girl is?" She continued in English, which made him wonder. Did she assume he didn't understand her language? Her confusion made more sense to him. She had no way of knowing he had heard their earlier conversation. As far as she knew, he should've been twenty years in the future (he was guessing twenty based solely on Bra's obscure comments and his best guess on how much she'd aged). And now he was here, apparently with no help, and knew things he shouldn't.

A larger smile crept across his face. That dangerous one that always reminded people of his parents. He was sure there was a manic look in his eyes as he reveled in how advantageous his position was.

He was stronger than her.

Her weapon was destroyed.

Her partner was gone, and based on the fact that he hadn't reappeared to help, probably trapped in the past.

And, to top it off, he knew everything and she didn't have a clue.

Perfect.

He wanted to taunt her. Wanted to brag about how his was a family of geniuses, who had already proven their ability to travel through time, even if that was another him. But right now, information was power, and he wanted it all for himself.

So instead of saying any of that, he settled for something he hoped was much more annoying.

"Let's just say, this isn't my first rodeo."

Cockiness might be a liability in a fight, but as his father had often told him, so was blind rage. She came at him like a rabid dog, claws flying at him instead of the more precise punches he had been expecting. He avoided most of them quite easily, but when one got through – leaving what he was sure was a nasty trail on his left cheek – he moved to the offensive.

During her next swipe, he pushed her arm off course then spun his own around it, effectively pinning it in the crook of his elbow while grabbing her upper arm. He dug his nails in for good measure, though he knew it would do no more than annoy her.

She roared, a gurgling sound that rose from deep in her throat, before trying again with her free arm. Trunks made as though to do the same with this arm, but instead merely swatted it aside. He used her momentary distraction to jab quickly at her larynx and tried not to enjoy the surprised intake of air as she registered the hit.

While her hand flew to her throat reflexively, he threw his right foot behind her left, then brought it forward. Her leg knocked out from under her, she tried to use the other for support and threw her body weight over to offset it. He quickly released her arm and now, even more off balance, she fell backward towards the ground.

Not content to let her fall under her own power, he rushed forward and slammed both fits down into her gut. The earth shook slightly from the force of the impact, but to her credit, she was on her feet and two yards away from him before the dust could even rise.

Trunks smiled – the only acknowledgement he ever gave regarding an opponent's skill – and nodded slightly. "Not bad for a chick, even if you are blue."

Her face contorted as she sneered at him, but the panting gave away how effective the previous blows had been. An arm wrapped protectively around her midsection, the other up in an attempt to block. She was lucky if she wasn't bleeding internally. His smile returned at the thought.

"Arrogant… Saiyan…" The accent was actually more comprehensible when she could barely talk. "You damn… monkeys… all the same…"

"You like Saiyans, huh?" Her eyes darkened at the mere suggestion. "Because you've managed to so spectacularly ruin my day and piss me off, I'm gonna give you something special." She watched wearily as he pulled in his ki, brought it down extremely low. Packed it in as tightly as he could, the way he always did. "I'm going to show you exactly why you do not. Fuck. With Saiyans."

He unleashed his energy, pushing it out around him like a whirlwind as he powered up. It grew and grew and the world glowed gold around him. Even as he went to Super Saiyan, he kept forcing it outward. He was aware that he was screaming, but he couldn't care. It was merely background noise as he continued to push higher and higher. His power level spiraled upward, increasing exponentially as he vented his absolute frustration with this day and with these people and with the knowledge that this fuck up had been his own fault for not telling anyone where he was going.

Well, problem solved, because as he ascended to Level 2, he was pretty sure every even remotely ki-sensitive person on the planet was aware of how pissed off he was.

When it finally ended, when he felt his energy couldn't go up any more, he reeled it in a little. He stood there, flexing slightly as his strength washed over him. It was overkill and he knew it. But that's what made it fun.

The woman was cowering now, actually cowering, using her good arm to shield her eyes from the light around Trunks. She openly gaped at him, not sure what else to do. They both knew she hadn't stood a chance even before he'd powered up. She might be the brains of the little alien duo, but her friend had obviously been the brawn.

As Trunks calmly walked towards her, she said what must have been the only thing she could think to say.

"She's still going to die," she all but whispered. A taunt, or just a fact?

Reflexively, he punched her. He tried not to enjoy it too much as the black blood went flying as his fist made contact with her nose.

Her head snapped to the side. The way she stared blankly for a few seconds made him think he'd knocked something loose. After a moment, she turned her head back slightly and looked up at him through her eyelashes. "This changes nothing. She's dead already."

Trunks reached down and grabbed her by the neck, pulling her to her feet. She's no longer capable of standing on her own, but his grasp remains firm. Even if she wanted to fall, she couldn't. He holds her there for a moment, eye level, and stares into those black orbs. He knows what she sees in him – cold indifference – but what does he see? A woman who knows she's about to die? One who had her own dreams and hopes, but now stands there knowing she'll never see them fulfilled? Does she feel remorse for what she's done here today? Does she long for her partner's help, worry about his fate once left alone? Is that fear or defiance or just acceptance he sees brewing behind those glossy eyes?

In the end, he finds he doesn't care. This woman took away his sister. Has done everything in her power to make sure that she doesn't come back from wherever the hell they sent her.

He crushes her neck and instantly releases her lifeless form. He gives her a full minute. One full minute of his time as he acknowledges to himself that he has killed this woman. That one less life exists in the universe and his was the hand that took it. One full minute where he can feel something close to sorry about it.

Then he does what he's been trained to do since a boy. Fight. Kill. Incinerate.

Not one cell left, he finally allows himself to turn his back on her. He releases his ki as he walks away, not once feeling the need to look back.

With the very real suspicion that his father was going to kick his ass and his mother was going to scream his ears off for losing his sister, Trunks headed back to the jet.


	11. Chapter 10: Caught

**AN:** A little later than usual with an update. Apologies – RL needed some attending to. Not only am I late with the chapter, but it's I think the shortest one to date… Though this does mark (I think) a shift in the story that will pick up momentum in the next chapter (which I already dread the number count on… I suspect I may have to break it into two chapters).

And apologies in advance – I can guarantee there won't be an update next week since Mass Effect 3 comes out and I won't be doing much of anything else… But after that, a weekly update schedule will be (hopefully) adhered to.

This is the first chapter I've done where perspectives change. I tried to make it clear whose POV it was for each section. As always, enjoy and thanks for the support.

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 10: Caught**

Wake up. Train. Eat. Train. Eat. Spend time with the boy. Train. Eat. Spend time with the woman. Sleep. Repeat.

It was the schedule that had come about in the wake of the Cell Games. After coming to terms with the fact that he may somewhat, at least a little, care about Bulma and Trunks, it had become necessary to incorporate them into his life. The routine had been set for months, had provided the foundation on top of which he could build his life here on Earth.

That girl was the only thing that was off in the simple little world he'd come to expect. She stuck out in so many ways. The mere fact that he even knew she existed was alone proof that she wasn't normal. She'd insinuated herself into their lives - _his_ life, confound it all - and he was the only one who seemed to care. Who even seemed to notice.

And then he'd heard his son say those words. When he thought about how the fuck his son could have learned them, his mind automatically went to her. She was the only thing that was strange. She was the only thing that didn't fit.

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just does not belong.

He'd so easily determined her to be the cause, that he had overlooked the obvious problem.

How the hell could that girl, that pathetically human girl, have learned Saiyan?

Vegeta spent days and days obsessing over it. She didn't look Saiyan. Didn't act Saiyan. Had no ki to speak of. She seemed human enough, even if she was a misfit. But the pieces didn't add up and he could not let it go. Years of paranoia made it impossible for him to do so.

In the end, he decided there was only one thing for it. Before he worried about whether she was a telepath or an alien or something equally absurd, he needed to _prove_ that she was in fact the source of his son's new found knowledge.

But how?

* * *

><p>They'd called him a brilliant tactician. One of the best. He'd probably be the first to agree with them. Yet if you looked at his plan, the little "trap" he'd set, you'd laugh at the absurd simplicity of it.<p>

He'd speak, she'd respond, he'd know.

One, two, three. As simple as that.

But it had taken him time. Time to come up with the right conditions, the right word. Things had to be perfect. If the situation was wrong, it would tip her off to his suspicions. If the word was wrong, she might not even notice. Might not even react. Chances are, he'd only get one opportunity to try before she put her guard up.

It was lunch at Capsule Corps. The old man had provided a large amount of food for the employees, celebrating some ridiculously boring and mediocre event that passed as an accomplishment with these people. Damn near a hundred people in the large cafeteria near the labs. All talking. All trained by years of experience with the Saiyan to _absolutely_ ignore him if possible. All busy enjoying their little "festivity."

All but the girl, of course. She hovered near a group of scientists. She feigned interest in their conversation as she pushed her food around her plate like she always did when Vegeta was around. Her smiles, her laughs, her words of agreement might have been right, but as someone equally skilled in deception, they rang false to him.

Blending in was hard. He tried not to attract too much attention to himself, but even when they were pointedly ignoring him, the employees seemed to subconsciously know to give him a wide berth. It helped that there was food. It gave him an excuse for being there if the old man or Bulma wondered. Voluntarily coming to the labs was something he did so rarely he could probably count how often it happened on one hand.

He'd spent a lot of time thinking about what word to try. It had to be generic enough that anyone who spoke Saiyan would know it, but specific enough that she would instinctively react to it. In the end, there was really only one word he could think of. All he had to do was find the right time…

Vegeta waited, patiently, until he was sure she had forgotten his presence. Let him fade into the background like everyone else.

He licked his lips slowly, anticipation flowing out with each breath. Yes. This was it.

"_Girl,"_ he barked gruffly, putting the same tone behind it he used when calling Bulma "woman" or Trunks "boy" or even Dr. Brief "old man."

While no one else in the room reacted, she looked over to him as instantly and reflexively as if he had just called her name. They locked eyes and he could see the instant she recognized her lapse, and the instant she was able to cover it up. She arched her eyebrow at him, as if in challenge, then turned back to the others with a smile on her lips.

Yes, then.

It _was_ her.

Now he just needed to figure out what he wanted to do about it.

* * *

><p>Bra's ears were buzzing. There was a faint red at the corners of her vision and she was pretty sure she was close to hyperventilating. Oh, and she definitely wanted to throw up.<p>

_Shitshitshitshitshit._

He knew. Vegeta fucking knew.

She took another drink, wishing it was something stronger than seltzer, and smiled through her teeth at someone's joke that she hadn't even heard. She couldn't hear anything over her heart pounding.

After all this time, after being so careful… She'd spent all her time trying to keep her mother off her trail, she hadn't realized how close her father had been. But she should've known something was off. He was too hostile. She'd let it go because, well, her father could be hostile. Every time he tried to goad her into an argument, she'd try not to look too amused. Sometimes it was hard not to fight back, but she needed his attention on her like a whole in the head. But it seems it wasn't his general dislike for strangers. The whole time he'd been suspicious. And now he knew.

She noticed her hand was shaking as she took another bite. Slowly, she closed it into a fist and forced herself to stop.

_Calm the fuck down. He doesn't know shit. Dad might know something, but there's no fucking way he knows _this.

But what _could _he possibly know?

1. I don't fit in. Guess it takes an outsider to recognize another outsider.

2. I work for Dr. Brief. But he's never given a shit about anything related to Capsule Corps if it doesn't have to do with the GR. He has seen me in the lab, but he can't know what I'm working on because, quite frankly, only Dr. Brief does. But if he did mention it to Mom and she didn't know, that might make him suspicious.

3. He hasn't noticed my ki flares. Either he thinks it's whatever I'm working on, or he just hasn't noticed at all. If he starts getting paranoid, he might be able to figure out it's actually _me_ doing that.

4. He spoke Saiyan to me. He knows _I_ speak Saiyan. With the dark hair, he might possibly think I _am _Saiyan. Except for the eyes. But I've kept my ki down when I know he's paying attention (need to work on the tantrums…). He probably would've outright tried to fight me if he thought I could handle it. Most likely, he's just pulling straws.

5. I watch Trunks. By itself, that's meaningless. But I bet that's how he knows I speak Saiyan… Guess I'll have to have a talk with the poor kid and figure out how to do some damage control from there.

Overall, she was sure she was mostly in the clear. There was enough to make her stand out, sure, and that was dangerous enough in her circumstances, but Vegeta couldn't possibly have put together who she really is. All he had was suspicions and a vague mistrust of her that he probably could barely justify to himself. She might have given him a little more just now, but he didn't have enough clues to put "speaks a dead alien language" with "daughter from the future."

At least not yet.

Guess it was just her luck that the person who was usually her strongest ally was now her biggest problem.

"Well?"

Bra's attention snapped back to the conversation at hand. The biologist from 3A, the lab down the hall from her. Friendly, relatively handsome, put together. Bulma had introduced her to him a week ago at a staff brunch. She frowned at him as she tried to focus. What did he just say?

She replayed the conversation over in her mind. Dinner. He'd asked her to dinner.

Her nose wrinkled slightly at the very idea. Dinner with a man who in her time was roughly her parents' age. Lovely. And not at all creepy.

Instead of outright refusing, she decided to be diplomatic and hope he took the hint. "You're a little old for me."

He laughed somewhat nervously. It was a good laugh, one that would probably have been quite charming if the circumstances had been different. If they had been forty years different. "I'm sure I'm not that much older than you are. Maybe four, five years. How old are you, anyway?"

_Negative ten._

"Old enough that I don't like being asked how old I am." When she didn't say anything else, he took the dismissal for what it was and left, looking slightly abashed.

Now alone, Bra subtly searched the room for her father. If he'd been watching her, she hoped her reaction was "human" enough that it hadn't helped him figure her out.

_Though you'd have to be a mind reader to figure this one out_.

But he'd apparently left. His ki was well away from the business side of the building. Good. Distance would be helpful. And a game plan. She needed a game plan.

_Pull it together. You need to cut back on going to the house. You need to avoid being alone with Dad, period. Hell, avoid Mom too. You need to – ABOVE ALL – finish that goddamn machine ASAP. _

Right. Let's get this shit done.


	12. Chapter 11: Confrontation

**AN: **What can I say? I was too into writing this chapter that I figured I couldn't wait until after ME3, so I got it done ahead of time. And I was right… the original plan for this chapter had to be cut in half otherwise it would have been _ridiculously_ long.

Figured I'd given Bra, Trunks and Vegeta their chance to speak, so there's a little bit of Bulma's POV at the beginning.

Enjoy.

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 11: Confrontation**

There were deadlines to meet, press conferences to attend, projects to review, and a cute little half-Saiyan wanting his mommy. Bulma was stressed and as much as she loved her Saiyan Prince, he had the worst timing.

Even over the roar of her work, she heard him burst into the lab. For a man that could move silently, he sure liked to slam doors. As he stomped towards her - _I sooo do not have time to fix his crap right now_ - Bulma couldn't be bothered to look up from her welding. With no small amount of enjoyment, she let him wait a full two minutes before she put down the blow torch, pulled off the protective gear and stared him down like only she could.

He was glaring at her, and she grinned innocently. _That's right big boy, I say wait, you wait._ "Yes, Vegeta?"

"I require your assistance with the girl who watches the boy."

It took her a few seconds to figure out what he meant. The boy = Trunks. The girl who watches Trunks = Bra. "You mean the new girl?" Now she was genuinely curious. It wasn't often Vegeta had a non-training related problem. In fact, she wasn't sure if he'd ever mentioned a non-training related problem to her. That was more the type of thing he sulked about on his own rather than actually talked about. "What about her? She giving you problems?"

He seemed to consider briefly what to say. Bulma was again surprised at the obvious effort he was putting in. Vegeta was _not_ a man careful with his words. He just spit out whatever came into his head, regardless of how tactless or rude it was. In fact, if he could be rude or tactless, it was somehow a bonus.

"That girl is... not what she seems."

Bulma tried to process what the hell that could mean. "Oookay... Care to give me a little more there?"

"She doesn't belong here."

"Well," Bulma snapped, frustrated with being interrupted for vague complaints about a girl who was friggin babysitting their kid for _free_. While money wasn't exactly a concern, someone who was willing to watch their super-strong and super-fast son was in and of itself a small miracle. _ "You_ don't exactly belong here, but _she's_ not complaining about it, now is she?"

"Woman." The evenness of his tone cut through her irritation and she stopped. He wasn't yelling or even raising his voice. When the hell did they ever have a conversation like that? "The girl speaks Saiyan."

Saiyan? But how was that possible? Bulma hadn't even heard Vegeta speak it, unless he was having a nightmare, and even then she didn't know what it was he was speaking. It could've been Polish for all she knew. "You sure?"

He glared at her and crossed his arms over his chest.

Yeah, he was sure.

"Okay, you've got my attention."

He told her what he could, which wasn't really that much. Just observations and theories that were little more than conjecture. Bulma tried to have an open mind, and he did make a couple good points. Bra was a little off. And now, Bulma _didn't_ know what her father had her working on. But most of it just seemed to be his own paranoia.

"Look, Vegeta-"

"I am _not_ imagining this!" he snapped, for the first time his voice nearly rising to a yell.

Bulma chewed her cheek as she rolled the words around in her mouth. "Okay, let's say you're right-"

"I _am_ right."

"_Fine_, you _are_ right." _Dende, I hope Trunks won't be like this when he grows up. Last thing I need is _two_ Saiyans arguing with me all the time._ "If she speaks Saiyan… what does that _mean_?"

"Blast it all, woman! I don't know _what_ it means, but mark my words it means _something!_"

Maybe having no enemy to fight, no rival to beat, was getting to him. Maybe he just couldn't handle a life at peace, so he needed to concoct this scheme just to keep his adrenaline pumping.

She hoped this wasn't the case. She really really hoped not.

But what was the alternative? That Bra – someone she'd trusted her _son_ with – could be some dangerous alien or something worse?

Maybe Vegeta just being paranoid wouldn't be so bad.

Of course, Vegeta tended to be a decent judge of character. If he were right and they did nothing… Well, she'd never be able to forgive herself.

He was watching her intently, no doubt well aware of where her thoughts were tending. Silently, he waited for her to say something. To agree with him or call him crazy or even to say she didn't care. Just _something_.

"Alright," she said slowly. "I'm willing to assume you're right." He visibly relaxed and it touched her slightly to think her opinion mattered to him that much. But she stored the emotion away for later, when she had the time to focus on the whole "relationship" they did or didn't have. Trunks first. "Where do we go from here?"

The smirk spread to meet the honed ferocity in his eyes. "Let's go have a chat with the little wench."

* * *

><p>Bra hadn't slept much that night. She'd been worried beyond belief about what her father might do with his new-found knowledge. Scenario after scenario played out in her head, some seeming more likely than others. But in the end she realized… she'd never be able to predict what angle he'd come at her from. This was <em>not<em> her father. She was _not_ his little girl. All the variables she was used to dealing with when it came to Vegeta no longer held any weight. This was a man she didn't know. She couldn't even tell if he perceived her as an enemy or just as a puzzle he was determined to figure out.

After a couple hours of tossing back and forth restlessly, she'd just given up on the idea of sleep and gotten back to work.

Turning from one obsession to the next, she was at least glad to be making progress on the machine. Energy output was a lot more stable. She could actually activate the damn thing without it blowing up or setting things on fire. That was definitely a plus.

She spent the morning calibrating the different settings. She'd change the output a little, test it on some random object – a pen, a beaker, some musty old lab coat she found under the fouton – then look over the results. The first few times were… unsettling. The objects would glow faintly before going back to normal, only to then melt. The results showed she had completely destabilized their structure at the molecular level. Which was, quite possibly, what she was supposed to be doing.

"Great progress, Bra," she muttered and tried to clean up yet another failed test. The unrecognizable goo had once been a telescope. "If you want to liquefy yourself, you're most of the way there."

She just needed to figure out a way of _returning_ them to their original structures. And oh yeah, get them to move through time.

Ugh.

Eventually she _did_ get a few to disappear completely. That was a step in (she hoped) the right direction.

But when at 12 o'clock a stool clattered back into existence – an hour after it had disappeared - and toppled over in the test area, Bra started to think she was on to something.

"We missed you at brunch today."

Bra snapped up so fast she nearly pulled a muscle. She knew it was Dr. Brief, but the idea of being barged in on had been worrying her all day.

"Relax, relax," he chuckled slightly. "How are things going?"

She'd gotten a lot of things from her mother. Her looks, her brains, her love of shopping and partying, her friendly mannerisms. But she was her father's daughter. Her whole being was focused on either a. worrying about her father or b. getting this machine to work. And in the panic underlying her current actions, she couldn't help but put up her barriers and shut him out.

So instead of telling him about what had happened yesterday with her father, or the specifics of her success, she gave a clipped, "Better."

He nodded slightly, apparently not offended by the terse reply. "Well, if it helps, I always find it helpful to go big when making tests. If you're not getting the results you want, double or halve everything. No use going through every setting little by little. It'll help you narrow down the area you want to be in."

Bra stared at him expressionlessly for a moment. While internally she admitted that was probably helpful advice, externally she just nodded.

"Bunny and I were wondering if you'd mind watching Trunks for a little while."

"I'd rather not-"

"Only for an hour, I promise. You know I wouldn't normally ask, but Bunny has some errands to run and neither Bulma nor I have the time right now."

She rubbed her left temple and tried to push away a migraine. This was not a good idea. Avoiding the family in general was probably safest.

But at this point her father was _already_ suspicious. In fact, he might find it odd if she started totally avoiding them. Changing her schedule so completely and so abruptly would send off red flags. The last thing she needed was to get her mother equally interested in her whereabouts. Unless she was _sure_ she could finish the machine before they came asking questions – and she was _not_ – she needed to pretend everything was the way it was before Vegeta's little test.

And let's face it, she owed Dr. Brief.

"Fine, I'll be at the house in a little bit. I want to change a couple settings and run another test before I do anything."

"Bunny will be waiting for you." He offered a friendly smile at the door before adding, "Remember – double it or halve it."

"Thanks," she muttered to herself, her grandfather already gone. She stared at the machine, hands on her hips and brow creased in concentration. Finally, she shrugged before doubling the settings she was still playing with.

What was the worst that could happen?

* * *

><p>It was actually a relief to get out of the lab and spend time with her brother. She'd spent a solid eight hours working so far today, and the mental break was more needed than she'd realized. And in the cool breeze on a warm day playing in their backyard like they used to years and years ago, it was hard to think anything bad could come from this moment of weakness.<p>

She was racing back and forth across the grass with Trunks. The little boy was faster than most teenagers, and certainly faster than their mother, so he was clearly starved for the chance to stretch his legs. And the idea of _competing_ with someone who could keep up was apparently a new thrill to him. Obviously she let the toddler win. She thought of it as returning a long owed favor. Trunks had always let win when she was a child, whether it be board games or these races across the back yard.

Of course, there eventually came a time when she could tell he was actually trying to win and still losing the races. That's when she knew whatever he had in strength, she made up for in speed. It had pleased her to no end to know she was better than him at something, but now the rivalry seemed silly and childish.

Though in comparison to her current situation, her whole life seemed silly and childish.

"_Many funs!_" Trunks yelled in Saiyan before rushing back to the starting line.

Bra grimaced at that, but got ready to throw another race.

She had considered whether or not to address the whole speaking Saiyan issue with him. She knew he could say a few words, though not much. Bra, and Trunks for that matter, had a bad habit of talking to themselves in Saiyan when they were annoyed or agitated. They'd both learned when they were kids, and since it was a language spoken by a grand total of three people on the planet, it was a safe way to express their anger without getting yelled at or funny looks.

Needless to say, Bra had been muttering it to herself a lot lately.

Even so, she wasn't an idiot. She knew better than to do it around Vegeta. But Trunks should have been safe. He was two. He should've learned at least a little by now. After a few days, when he'd started repeating some of what she'd said back, she thought that was why. Because their father had already taught him a bit.

Apparently not.

Damn bastard had always been too smart…

He _had_ always been good with that sort of thing. The family had spent a week vacationing in Mexico when she was a kid, and by the end of it he'd nearly been fluent in Spanish. Without even trying, which was the frustrating part to her. Spanish had been the only subject she'd ever gotten a C in...

It should've set off warning bells, though. She should've caught on earlier. Trunks hadn't learned from Vegeta. He was learning it from _her_. _Right now_.

Fuck.

In the end, she'd decided there was no point in talking to him about it. Damage done. She was feeling pretty optimistic that she'd be out of here within the week. The added pressure was helping her focus on her work. After she was gone, she would just be the mystery of the girl who babysat Trunks and could speak Saiyan.

Dende, she _hoped_ she'd be out of here within the week.

When she felt their ki's approaching, she did her best not to react. To pretend she was like any other human, completely unaware of how to sense ki, and tried her damnedest to keep playing with Trunks. But she was only so good at acting, and she couldn't help but feel her nervousness was visible to anyone who even tried to look.

When Trunks noticed them, only a few meters away, it was impossible to pretend they weren't there. And as he rushed eagerly towards his mother and father, Bra gave up on the hope they weren't coming there to talk to her.

Deliberately, Bra turned to face them. Looked them in the eyes as they marched down on her. With her parents it was never good to run away.

She'd seen that look in her father's eyes before. When you'd fucked up the GR. When you'd eaten the last of the leftovers. When you'd done something wrong, and he _knew_ it was you. That was the look that told Trunks and Goten to brace for impact, and told her to start the water works.

Not that it would work this time.

Her arms secure around her baby boy, Bulma's expression was a little harder to read. Vegeta's mind might be made up, but hers wasn't. She didn't know what to think about the younger woman, though she clearly was going to follow Vegeta's lead.

"We need to talk, girl."

Bra tried not to sigh. In her head, she ran through the list of possible outs and strategies that might help her. She was a little surprised to notice how she was assessing her father for physical weaknesses to exploit. How would she fair in a fight against this man? Was his bad left side something he already had, or had earned in a later fight? Was the style of fighting he had taught her the one from years of training as a child, or one he had perfected over the years on Earth? Could she really say she knew how to fight this man?

_Could_ she fight him if she needed to?

Whatever internal conflict she felt about it, she hoped she appeared cool. "What about?"

Whatever Vegeta might have said was lost in the sound of someone breaking out of supersonic and then coming to a forceful landing a few hundred feet away from then. The combined effect left a gust of wind and surges of dust fanning outward in all directions. Bulma instinctively turned away and used her back to shield herself and Trunks from the few pieces of rock that shot out. The wind rippled through Vegeta and Bra's hair and shook their clothes, but otherwise neither reacted.

As the dust settled, it was clear someone was in the little crater that had just ruined the Compound's perfect landscape. And when his features came into view, Bra couldn't help the gasp that escaped her throat.

Tall. Dark, oily blue skin. Long black hair bound behind his head. The twisted ears and demented black eyes.

The man who might have killed her brother.

Oh.

_Fuck_.


	13. Chapter 12: When the Shit Hits

**AN: **Again, apologies for the delay. My entire focus for the past week has been on ME3, and it's still hard to pull myself away.

This chapter is one of the first things that came to mind when I first started developing this story. The one thing I hate is describing fights – I can picture them much more clearly than I can actually describe them in words. The length of this chapter might be due to my attempt to do just that. Let me know if it was too long and drawn out.

Though I suppose, in the DBZ tradition, I should've had more random powering up and banter/monologues ;)

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 12: When the Shit Hits the Fan**

Bra had already been having a pretty crappy month. Being in the past hadn't exactly been a picnic when she'd actually been keeping to herself and working on stuff. Sure, it'd gotten a little shittier when her dad started butting his nose into her business. And yeah, she really didn't want to have _that _conversation with her parents.

But really? _This_?

Two scenarios played out immediately in her head. The first played out following her instincts. Fall back, let dad take care of it. Even in this time, he was stronger than her. Let him fight, reveal nothing, deal with her parents later. But Trunks made her think otherwise. She didn't know the specific conditions of the fight this man had waged with her brother. Whatever the circumstances, this man had won.

While her interference in this timeline might result in her own nonexistence, her father dying fighting this man would mean the end of the world come Buu. Literally.

The second scenario was more personally damning. Step up, fight herself. It was a no win situation for her. Win the fight, have to explain her power level on top of everything else. Lose... well, at least she wouldn't have to deal with her parents anymore. But at the very least, she could tire the guy out. Weaken him, make it easier for her father to pick him off and maintain as much of the timeline as possible.

And like the good Earth-born Saiyan she was, personal sacrifice was her mode of choice.

The decision, the war that had waged away inside her and the calculations she ran had taken her merely a few seconds, but her reaction seemed immediate as she stepped between her family and the alien. The alien saw the protective act and merely smiled.

_Yes,_ his eyes said. _You first._

"Stay here and protect them!" she yelled, clearly about to charge the attacker.

"Do not give me orders, girl," he snarled as his hand clamped around her arm. She could tell it was a knee jerk reaction on his part. If he'd actually thought it through, he would be wondering what _she_ thought she could do in a fight.

"Just do it," she snarled back with a ferocity that compelled even Vegeta to yield. In that moment Bulma was struck by the intensity of her glare and the single-minded drive of a warrior about to go into battle. She had only seen that look in one other person in her whole life, and his back was currently to her.

As she walked steadily towards the alien, locking eyes with him to make sure he didn't pay attention to her family, she was hit with the gravity of the situation once again.

Bra had never had a fight like this. Her little scuffle with the blue woman had been but a prelude of what was to come. Her training - all of it - was centered around fighting other Saiyans. She knew their tactics, knew their strengths and weaknesses as well as she knew her own. And those fights only ended one of two ways. Someone yields, or someone gets knocked out. This man was different. She knew nothing of him, couldn't even begin to make a guess. Were his major organs even in the same place? Would he bleed as much from a head wound as she would? And worse, there was only one way this fight was going to end.

Neither could afford to keep the other alive...

About ten feet away, Bra rushed him. No use waiting for him to make the first move.

They parried each other's blows for a moment, each sizing up the other and warming up. She hadn't needed to power up yet, but she could feel her ki rising in anticipation, power seeping through the cracks of the façade she'd built over the past month. For the moment that was good. Vegeta's curiosity would keep him from getting involved.

That was probably the problem. She'd let her focus drift to the people watching. Which was why abruptly – _very_ abruptly – the exchange escalated and Bra found herself punched to her knees, copper blood filling her mouth and fake glasses knocked aside. She looked up through what would later be a swollen eye at the alien towering over her. He leered at her and it made her sick.

So Bra did what she always did when a guy looked at her like that. Her fist went up with as much force as she could manage and made contact with his crotch.

He gasped out in surprise before his leg kicked out reflexively and sent her a good twenty yards across the grass.

Hmm. Guess they don't keep theirs in the same place.

By the time Bra had jumped to her feet, he had materialized behind her. As his arms came up beneath hers, hers went to the back of his head, throwing herself forward and using the momentum to toss him onto his back.

She found herself wishing she was wearing six inch heels instead of her dirty Saiyan boots as her foot came down, barely missing his face as he rolled away. He took advantage of her unsteady balance to dart in and out, always trying to kick and jab at her with increasing frequency. The first two made it through, but Bra was warmed up now. If he wanted to take her down, speed wasn't the way to do it.

He'd have to use brute force.

A particularly devastating kick struck nothing but air as she did a back flip to dodge him. But while she may have missed the kick to the side, she left herself exposed to a punch to the back. Instead of landing her flip, she fell face first in the dust. And this time the heel that came down wasn't hers.

"Agh!" she coughed out, as much blood as spit flying from her mouth.

_Fuck, that was quick. _

"It's amazing that you managed to survive here as long as you did." She couldn't see him, her vision obscured by dark spots and a view of his boots. But the way his words seemed to stick together, she had this strange image of him speaking with a mouth full of molasses.

_Five minutes and I'm already out._

"I don't normally need to handle things myself." She heard his knuckles crack. "You should be honored."

She felt his fingers tangle through her hair. He must have slammed her head into the ground after that, because all she felt was a hollow numbness pumping through her brains. Which meant it probably would hurt a lot when the adrenaline wore off. "And I was hoping you'd prove more of a challenge than the boy was."

The boy. Was.

_Was!_

_Like fuck I'm out._

She shot up like a bullet, tackling him. He cried out in surprise as her fists started pounding into his chest. Bambambambam she wouldn't stop and even with the dark blue of his skin she could see the even darker spots of newly formed bruises bubbling to the surface.

It didn't surprise her when it was a ki blast that shot her off of him. Right in her lower abs, a perfect circle of burnt clothes exposing her skin.

_Fuck, that kinda hurt. Really missing that armor right about now._

A scream let her know he had charged up another blast, and she braced herself, elbows crossed and forearms shielding her face, knees and feet planted in the ground. Not that it helped. It was white hot and dazzling in its brightness when it hit her. Even though she fought against it, she felt herself being pushed back, a track of dirt left in her wake.

At the end she threw off the last of the beam and got to her feet, well aware that the edges of her jacket were smoldering. She hoped the glare she gave would do her father proud, her brow fierce in the determination to give back triple what she'd already taken from this asshole so far.

_At a girl,_ she imagined him telling her as she wiped away the blood trailing from her nose. _Keep your guard up, watch the right side where you took the punch. Keep aiming for the chest. Show him what a Saiyan can do._

She nodded ever so slightly at the internal pep talk. It was always his voice coaching her when she was sparing. Her desire to make him proud that kept her going. Even if the man watching wasn't really her father, she could still show him what she was made of.

_And Princess, _the voice added. _Now might be the time to start fighting dirty._

A damn evil look came into her eyes and if possible she looked more sinister.

_Yes, Daddy._

She sent two ki blasts at him as she started her charge, another two to keep him from seeing the way she'd come at him. As expected, the first two were deflected, but the third found home just as the forth was dodged. A gleeful laugh escaped as she jumped at him, fists locked together and coming down on his head.

"Arggh!" he cried out just before her fists brought him into contact with her knee.

Not stopping, she pushed him back to his feet and faked a punch with the left. He reflexively dodged, only to meet the real blow from the right. Not that she had planned on punching him. Her index and middle fingers made contact with his eye socket and he howled in pain, grasping at his now useless eye.

"_Baitano-sun!"_ he screamed. Didn't need a translator to tell her he'd just called her the worst thing he could think of.

_That's right asshole, the fucking eye._

Unfortunately, that just seemed to piss him off.

He lunged again and again, his attacks now with more power behind them. His increasing ki glowed around him and sparks occasionally flew off him as his fists met the empty ground where she had been but a second before. She might have been faster, but right now she was only able to dodge because his depth perception seemed to be off.

It was his hands she watched, which is why she missed her legs getting kicked out from under her. Though she had a great view of his hand snatching forward and grabbing her head.

And the ki blast his free hand was charging…

Bra wasn't a tactician like her father or even her brother. She was a bit more like the Sons in some respects. She just did what seemed natural. They punch, you dodge. They advance, you counter.

So when his grasp tightened around her face, squeezing at her temples and holding her steady above him, her instincts made her next move quite obvious.

She opened her mouth and bit down as hard as she could. A salty taste told her she had definitely broken the skin, and the give under her teeth told her she'd broken something else.

He immediately began trying to shake her off. Not wanting to give up even this small advantage, she grabbed onto his arm and clamped down tighter with her mouth. She could feel him swinging her wildly back and forth, but she didn't let go until her body violently made contact with the ground. Even then it was only the involuntary gasp that allowed him to pull free, a good kick to her ribs avenging the previous dirty moves.

Clutching her side and gasping slightly (yes – something was definitely broken in there), she looked at him with a smug look on her face as he glared back with his one good eye.

But she couldn't help look down at his right hand, the one drenched with free flowing dark blood. She looked back up at him and smiled, fully aware that her mouth was probably dripping as well.

_That's right asshole, that just happened._

"I will enjoy killing you."

Her victory, it seemed, was short-lived. One of the largest ki blasts she'd seen short of a Spirit Bomb started forming. Her smile evaporated as she got up and sped away. The attack missed her, but the edge of the blast caught her and she lost control of the flight.

Stopping only to regain her balance, she realized what he'd taken away from the last part of their fight: She was dangerous up close, but from a distance he could still blast her off the face of the planet. Lovely.

Unfortunately for her alien friend, her brother had learned this a while ago. Vegeta had taught his little girl that if she couldn't win with strength, there were other venues open to her. She could list them all. Hair. Eyes. Nose. Knees. Kidneys. Crotch. Throat. If Bra felt cornered, she'd go for any of these. Trunks had gotten his face scratched in and his balls kicked enough to learn to stay out of arm's reach of her if he could help it.

End result – Bra might not be very refined in her hand-to-hand combat, but she could dodge ki blasts like nobody's business.

She circled him, trying to make tighter passes but always having to move outward as a beam got too close for comfort. Both were tiring out – that much was obvious – but she didn't want this fight to be a test of their staying power. She wanted it over so she could stop worrying about the three people watching from the sidelines. They were the only reason she didn't go farther out, didn't try to expand the borders of their little arena. She couldn't let his attention fall on them. She would _not_ let them be used as leverage against her.

But by the grace of her ability to piss people off, she had no doubt she'd be able to hold his attention. As long as her dad didn't get involved.

Twenty, thirty, forty blasts, all small, were fired in rapid succession at her. A few made their way to her, but for the most part they just became craters in the lawn. It was somewhere around the sixtieth that she became worried. They were getting bigger. The interval between them was longer, but they were definitely bigger.

She'd have to fire back.

Once she was sure of his pattern (two blasts in succession, five seconds to charge, next two blasts), she dodged two of the blasts and abruptly turned to face him. He was still powering up his next shot, and his face hardened slightly to see her now try to fight back.

Her palm came up for a Big Bang.

Four seconds left. She was halfway charged.

Shit, her dad was _right there_. She couldn't do this attack.

Three seconds.

Fire or run. Fire something or run.

Two seconds. She pulled her arm back and cupped her hands at her side. Not her first choice, but hell she needed _something_.

One second.

Her shout of "Kamehameha!" clashed against his unintelligible grunt as they fired together.

Her beam shot out, not fully charged. It flew right by both of his, which circled around and hit her square in the chest. The twin blasts blinded her of anything else, making it impossible for her to know if hers hit. The force of the impact sent her careening backward until she came into contact with the Compound wall. And then the wall in the room behind that one. And then another.

There was a buzzing in her ears and her hair stood on end. She had a good couple hundred pounds of rubble on her and her already damaged ribs were practically crying out at the injustice of this new weight. She lay there, wheezing for a few seconds.

Oh no. Fuck. This. Shit.

Her scream was downright feral as she threw off the debris. She ran to the edge of the building, now sporting a large Bra-like hole in the main outer wall.

She marched out, locking eyes with the bastard as he tried to catch his breath – obviously the Kamehameha had at least hit its mark. Snarling at him she pulled off the ruined capsule corps jacket and threw it aside.

This was no longer about beating him. This wasn't even about protecting Trunks and her parents. This was about her wanting to pound this guy into a fine powder for the all the shit she'd had to go through. Those walls included.

For a moment, it seemed as though he was about to say something, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. But as her body sparked electric blue and her gaze never wavered, he seemed to think better of it.

She couldn't hold it in anymore. Her utter _rage_ at being put in this situation where she had to choose between her family and herself. That she'd had to suffer and then suffer some more because these assholes came to her goddamned planet looking to stir up shit.

And in that rage, she just couldn't stop it, consequences be damned.

She pulled at every last strand of energy she had. The rage was the fuel that bound it altogether, that pushed it outward as she skyrocketed towards Super Saiyan. Even after she glowed that telltale gold she kept forcing it higher and higher until she found the very reaches of what she could handle.

Going Super was always an internal transformation for her. Her whole world focused on her thoughts and fears, the world outside left unnoticed until she'd finished. Now, as she looked with her hardened green eyes, she saw she had quite the audience.

Whatever might have happened after she had disappeared into the building, she now had the full attention of her stunned parents and equally stunned opponent. Only Trunks, who clapped slightly when she looked his way, seemed unsurprised.

"Super Saiyan." There was awe and disbelief in the way he said it, the molasses somehow giving the title a noble quality at the same time his tone tried to degrade it.

"You better fucking believe it, asshole," she spat. She gave him her best Vegeta smile and let him take in just how fucking terrifying she was at that moment before walking towards him.

In desperation, he fired shot after shot at her. She didn't even bother to deflect them, letting her own energy absorb them as she kept her methodical pace. She didn't let it show, but each hit was hurting her, draining a little more of her energy and pressing more and more on her injuries.

The fear tactic was starting to work. He actually turned to flee (she almost laughed hysterically at the very idea that someone would flee from _her_ and wondered what Trunks would say about it). If this weren't the past, she might have indulged him. But she couldn't have him wandering around this time causing more trouble. Both fists slammed the ground with concussive force and he lost his balance.

She fired off a quick shot just for good measure. She didn't want him going anywhere.

"You should feel honored," she hissed his words back at him as she reached his prone body. She kicked him and he rolled awkwardly onto his back, staring up at her with one good, one mangled eye. She stepped over him and leaned down, knees pressing into his arms and body forcing him further into the dirt. She grabbed his neck with one hand and raised the other, powering up a ki blast. "You are the first person I've ever killed."

He looked her square in the eye, his own bloodshot and filled with a drowsy quality. _It's not as simple as that,_ they told her. And she knew he was right. She knew that killing him would be killing a part of herself, that little piece of innocence her father and brother had gone out of their way to protect. That this was the final piece of her old life to disappear, and she was the one destroying it.

Her father and brother, standing a hundred yards away, watching her. The intensity of their eyes on her was like a burning heat she couldn't ignore. She wondered briefly how this would change the timeline. If they had known this about her from the start. That she could kill just as brutally as they could. What would that make them think about her?

It was some sort of sick, morbid joke that they had to watch this. Her mother too. Her only consolation was that they didn't know what they were seeing.

She leaned in real close, whispering, "I hope this planet was worth the visit."

Never had she thought of herself as a cruel person. Yes, she did like to have her fun but she generally knew people's limits. For the first time, she was tempted to push someone beyond theirs. She imagined breaking his bones one by one until he passed out, only to let him wake up before beginning all over again. Hell, she was sure her imagination wasn't good enough to come up with the type of things she wanted him to suffer.

But in the end, as this defeated man glared at her, waiting for his imminent death, she remembered quite clearly that she was _not_ a cruel person.

Not _that_ cruel anyway.

"This is for Trunks."

She used one hand to force his mouth open, putting the small ki blast inside. With both hands, she forced his jaw shut and used what little of her strength remained to keep him still as his skull lit up from the inside out. His body continued to go through seizures even after she was sure his brain had been incinerated. When the twitching stopped, she got to her feet and stood back as though to admire her handiwork.

"Oh Dende, what have I done," she whispered to herself.

It was hard to digest what had happened. Any remorse she felt was not really for the act itself. This man was a killer. Or rather, he _had _been a killer. She surely wasn't the first. A distant memory of a sickening thud and the fear of what that meant to Trunks settled the matter. The universe was better for his having left it. No, her remorse was more self-centered than that. She mourned the fact that _she_ had had to take the killing stroke. That she had to taint herself with the blood of another, instead of unceremoniously passing the duty off onto her Saiyan kin.

Mechanically, she stood and dusted herself off slightly.

It smelt of death. It wasn't a smell she'd ever encountered, but she knew it instinctively as she walked away.

Bulma was in shock. Bra could tell that even from this distance. Her father was... She'd never seen that look on his face before, but "incredulous" was the best she could do, and it only dented the surface. They started to approach, as if to meet her halfway, but she lifted a hand dismissively in their direction. The movement unbalanced her, and put a slight stagger in her step that she couldn't stop.

In any other time, it would've made them hurry to catch her. But she was an unknown entity. More of an unknown than she had been this morning, and it frightened one and made the other terribly uneasy. So as her gait became more and more erratic, they stopped to watch.

As Bra sank to the ground, knowing rather than feeling that she had dropped down from Super, a sense of disquiet bordering on panic grew. In the seconds before she lost consciousness, there was a vague fear in the back of her mind that they wouldn't let her wake up again.


	14. Chapter 13: Here One Minute

**AN: ** Took longer than I thought to get this chapter done. I had to scrap a whole section of it because it just didn't work the way I wanted. Oh well.

I think we're actually getting close to the end of this story. It's hard to believe it'll be over so soon… We're in the last few chapters (two? three more? not sure yet). Exciting to think I'll make it through an actual multi-chapter fic! Hooray!

As always, thanks for the support and enjoy!

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><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 13: Here One Minute**

She dreamed for a while. Floated on waves of images for so long that for a while she didn't know which things she dreamed and which were real. Which were memories. Most of it was nonsense. Her mother's voice and her brother's laugh and Pan's smile and Chichi's cooking and the smell of her office and the warmth of her bed. And the feel of her father's arms around her, carrying her back where she belonged. The familiarity of his ki lulling her back to sleep... There was safety in these things, and she had no reason to want to leave them.

But as slowly the pain crept back, the good things became darker and less clear. She'd be having a conversation with Trunks, joking with him, but he'd stop laughing and give her a worried look. "Bra, you have to wake up," he'd say desperately. Or she'd be in the kitchen with her mom. The conversation ends with her mother looking at her confusedly, "Bra, shouldn't you be in the lab?" She was in the Gravity Chamber with her father but he'd stop the fight and grab her roughly, shaking her by the shoulders. "Girl, what are you doing here? Get back home!"

Soon the happy moments were gone altogether. There was just shouting and crying and blue, everywhere blue. Blue and laughter and taunts about her brother and what would happen to her parents and her whole world.

Eventually all there was was pain. Nerve endings screamed as she came closer to consciousness. Her whole body burned and ached from bruises. Muscles were torn. She already knew her ribs were broken, but the intensity of the pain she felt in her chest was astounding.

And as she came to, she realized it wasn't just the broken bones. The knowledge of what she had done was like a vice around her heart...

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><p>Bra stared at the bland white ceiling for a while before she realized she was awake. The dull hum of florescent lights and the sterile smell told her she was in the med lab. And the throbbing in the back of her head told her she had good reason to be there.<p>

Even awake, she couldn't do much more than feel. She did a quick check of everything – every limb, every joint, every muscle – to see just how bad a shape she was in. The answer was quite simply "pretty bad."

Hours, minutes, she had no idea, passed but slowly her mind and body rejoined. With a grunt she pushed herself into a seated position.

Alone. She was actually alone in the med bay.

She knew this had been part of the Bio Labs when Capsule Corps had been next to the Compound. After the company had moved, the med bay had stayed. Given the nature of Saiyan training, it had come in handy a couple times. Two beds down was where she was stuck when she had first broken her ankle as a kid. Over there Pan had spent a good week when she'd gotten a surprisingly bad case of heat stroke from sparing in the desert. The beds in the corner were reserved for Goten and Trunks. The two couldn't go a couple months without one beating the other unconscious.

_Idiots,_ she thought, but knew damn well she had a fondness for the both of them.

No other ki's were in the area, which was a little odd. She figured Vegeta would be there as her armed guard, or her mother would be hovering to pester her. But both were a distance off. Her senses were still dulled by the pain, making it impossible to figure out anything more than a general direction.

Grabbing her side – bandaged, to her surprise – she slid off the bed. Her head swam from the movement. Sedatives. Strong ones. Apparently enough to keep her out for a while, and the grogginess told her they'd given her a Saiyan dosage. Guess she could count herself lucky for not dying of an overdose.

Being alone was a blessing she hadn't expected. Then again, she could barely stand. They must have figured she wouldn't be able to get very far if the sedatives didn't work. Even if she did, it'd take her dad all of five seconds to catch her. Seven if she took him by surprise.

There used to be nights when she'd sneak out to go to a friend's place or to a party. She never made it past the perimeter unless Trunks was running interference for her.

The wisps of a smile pulled at the edge of her lips. If only she could have the real thing instead of just memories…

Bra limped her way to the nearest counter. She doubted there were any Sensu beans waiting for her, but pain meds would be lovely.

She opened one of the reflective cabinets, grabbed what appeared to be Aspirin (she would've killed for some morphine, but work with what you have), and shut the door. She'd popped about a half dozen pills in her mouth before she actually noticed anything was off.

There was another occupied bed. A stiff form under a medical blanket, everything but the outlines of the body hidden from view. As if in a dream, she stumbled over to the bed. Hand hesitating over the cover, but slowly she pulled it down…

An empty blue face greeted her, one eye squinted closed and the other glazed over, staring at the ceiling.

Her gag reflex kicked in as the smell finally hit her. But she stood there, almost paralyzed, her drug-soaked mind trying to form a coherent thought.

_Search him,_ her mind commanded with the authority of her brother and father's voices.

Briefly she had considered torturing him for information. He must know how to get her home. He wouldn't come here without a way back. But the idea had so easily lead from information gathering to retribution that she knew it was too dangerous to pursue. She didn't trust herself to know when to stop.

Especially since he didn't seem like the type to talk.

Careful not to touch his wasted head – she didn't want to investigate too closely the effects of a ki blast directly to the brain – she went through his pockets. No weapons, no time travel device. All she could find was a small metal circle attached to the back of his boot. Its electronics hummed slightly when she touched it, and she could feel circuitry heating up in her hands.

Maybe not what she wanted, but it was something.

_Beggars can't be choosers_, she mused to herself before stuffing it in her pocket.

Plans of running back to the lab were interrupted when Bra noticed her mother's ki approaching the lab. A flicker of lightning through her brain warned her of the coming migraine. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, bracing herself for that one little extra thing she just didn't need right now.

_I don't know what to say. This is bad. This is very very bad. This could only be worse if I had a fucking tattoo across my forehead that said "I'm your daughter!" _

"You're not dead yet," she muttered, putting a stray lock of the offending hair color. "Probably a good sign."

She stood there a moment, bracing herself against the counter, eyes tightly closed as she waited for the medicine to kick in. She was fucked. Totally fucked. She was never going to be born and she might've fucked things up for everyone else too. This was probably the worst moment of her life, saturated in pain and failure and resignation.

Bulma walked in, the door loudly announcing her presence as it flung open and hit the counter. Bra winced slightly at the noise, already feeling a jackhammer at her temple, but didn't hesitate to meet the older woman's eyes.

"We need to talk."

Bra stared back, expressionless.

Bulma put up her hands as if to show she was unarmed. "I'm not here to accuse you of anything, I really just want to talk about what happened."

Her mother, at least when she came from, was an expert at dealing with taciturn Saiyans. Nothing shut her or her brother up faster than the possibility of having their mother yell at them. Bra had no desire to negotiate this conversation with her.

"I have nothing to say."

The blue-haired heiress thought a moment. Very slowly, so quietly Bra had to almost strain to hear it, she said, "I'm not really sure what's going on, but I wanted to thank you for protecting us back there."

Bra scoffed at that. The fact that she had won told her that her father wouldn't have had a problem putting the guy out of his misery himself. She'd exposed herself for nothing. But yes, she had done it for _them_.

Bulma raised an eyebrow, not sure what to make of that. "Look, Bra, I need you to talk to me about this. Work with me here. You've got to understand that this is… sort of a big deal. It's not even just whether or not you're Saiyan anymore. We need to know who you are and if you're a threat to us-"

"I could've killed all of you already if I'd wanted to."

_Yes, _that _will make you sound more sympathetic. Bravo. _

Bulma seemed to agree. She crossed her arms over her chest, a telltale sign she was preparing for an argument. A little more aggressive now, she continued. "Look kid, you either talk to me, or you talk to Vegeta. And you better believe it that I'm the better one to have to deal with."

_I have thirty odd years of having to deal with it,_ she thought sourly. _I'm well aware._

Before things could escalate further, the door snapped open again – though this time, even _more_ roughly than the first time – revealing the Saiyan Prince's triumphant face.

"Vegeta!" Bulma snapped. "I told you to wait until I'd had the chance to talk-"

"Forget talking."

It made Bra uneasy. As far as she could tell, he didn't have a reason to be so smug. He didn't _know_ anything, and she sure as hell wasn't going to _volunteer_ any information.

But he smiled evilly, meeting her eyes and watching her face closely as he pulled his hand from behind his back, lifting something into view.

The device.

_Her_ fucking device from _her _goddamned lab.

Panic rose inside of her like a storm cloud. "It's not ready yet!" she all but shouted, forgetting this wasn't a man to yell at. "You have _no idea_ what you could do-!"

She hadn't tested it since she'd last changed the settings. Fire? Explosion? Sure, her and her dad could take it, but fuck it all, her _mom_ was in here.

"Then we'll find out, won't we?"

Would he be bluffing? She saw the acid in his eyes and gulped. No, he would not.

"Tell me where you got your Saiyan blood." He lifted the device and pointed it squarely at her head. "Now."

She could feel herself grinding her teeth against each other. She'd seen him be this demanding of Trunks, but never of her. But she couldn't bat her eyes and whine to get out of this. Telling him wasn't really an option. Saying nothing was equally dangerous. She was stuck. Stuck looking down the barrel of a gun.

"Where'd you get yours?" she asked, staring at him intently. From his parents, of course. From his father. Just like her.

But of course he misunderstood her. Took for insolence what was meant as a subtle clue. He snarled like a wild dog and put his finger on the trigger and pulled it halfway. "Last chance, _girl_," he spit out the Saiyan word as if it were the severest of insults.

Bra stared at him blankly. Her father was possibly about to kill her. The device was _not_ ready, period. It was as likely to do nothing as it was to vaporize her, but she was inclined to believe it would be the latter.

And she'd been _so_ close. With something in the alien tech hopefully still salvageable, she could've done it. She closed her eyes briefly and let the enormity of her failure sink in.

So damned close.

She opened her eyes and stared her father down right before he pulled the trigger. Stared at him with her brother's eyes and a look she knew would mirror the intensity of his own.

_I _dare_ you to pull that trigger._

And he did.

* * *

><p>She couldn't remember the trip. The room felt different, but she didn't know how. The air was off, or maybe it was the light. Or maybe it was something more intrinsic that she'd never be able to tell what it was.<p>

Gasping, she found herself leaning against one of the exam tables. The smell of bile hung in the air, and she realized with some dismay that she had thrown up. A shaky arm came up to wipe her mouth. Didn't matter. She still felt like shit.

It was strange. She wasn't sure if she had imagined the whole scene with her father or not. He wasn't here, and neither was her mother. Maybe she was only now just waking up. If she had any luck at all – which she probably didn't – it was just a nightmare.

The door swung open on its hinges, the force of it almost tearing it off the wall.

"Bra!"

She turns instantly at the sound of his voice, tears immediately coming to her eyes. Hearing his voice was great, but she needed to _see_ him in one piece. Know that he was okay and he was actually _here_. That she was _here_.

And there he was, the big brother she knew. The one she who had always been there to protect her and whom she'd been missing for the past month. "Trunks!" she nearly sobbed as she ran and threw her arms around him. It was probably a good thing she was still recovering, otherwise she might have suffocated him with the fierceness of her embrace.

With some force, he finally pulled her away to look her in the eye. He didn't let her get farther than arm's length, keeping hold of her arms as he looked her over with obvious worry. "What happened? Where have you been? Are you hurt bad?" He was nice enough to refrain from adding "You look like shit," but she saw it in his eyes.

Bra couldn't help it. Trunks meant safety. Trunks meant home. Trunks meant she didn't have to do this alone, didn't have to be strong. She immediately started sobbing and shaking. "I just wanted to go home," she managed.

The intensity of his gaze faded slightly and he pulled her in for another hug, this one far more gentle. "Shhh, it's okay Bra. You're back. I'll take care of it. Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

But things weren't meant to be this easy. She should've known it couldn't last. A strange pulling sensation started building in her navel. She felt a force pulling her away, making her feel less connected to the room around her and the person in front of her. In alarm, she pushed away from him, trying to fight the feeling.

"Trunks," she said, her voice sounding fuzzy and muffled. She felt like she had to yell just to be heard. "I've been here, but in the pas-" a quick jerk broke her off. With a painful amount of concentration, like struggling to run in deep water, by a sheer force of will she made herself re-solidify and anchored herself in that moment. "I'm trying to get back, but it's not working."

"Bra, I don't understand-"

She could feel herself... dissolving. It was the only way to describe it. Coming apart at the seams, she knew he wouldn't hear her, but she tried desperately to tell him. "In the... Cell Games... Dad's been... Trying to... Okay but..."

And like that she was gone and Trunks was gone and it was blacker than night. Or brighter than she could see, maybe. Slowly she felt herself get pieced back together, bit by bit, and the world reappeared around her. Maybe it was a blessing she'd been unconscious the first time, or maybe it was just the unfinished state of the device, but it was the strangest feeling she'd ever experienced. It was almost painful, but mostly just disturbing.

As each cell was put back in its place and the med lab came back into focus, she saw the stunned looks of her parents. Her mother's jaw had fallen open and she was clearly beyond speech at the moment. Her father, always better at keeping his responses in check, still had shock and confusion clearly visible in his eyes. At first she thought it was because of her disappearance and sudden reappearance, but they seemed shaken to their core by what had happened.

"How much..." her voice cracked and she coughed slightly. "How much did you see?"

Bulma was the first to break the silence that followed that question. "He looked so much older... Older than Mirai..."

_Being in your forties does that to a person, _she almost snapped, but realized that probably wouldn't have helped. Her parents weren't even in their forties yet. They clearly weren't ready to see their two year old son that old.

Taking advantage of the situation, Bra stepped forward and snatched the device from her father's hands. He let go easily, more so than she would have expected, but she knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. "I'll be in the lab," she said and turned on her heel to get out of there. _Let them think whatever they want about what happened. I'm not staying here to incriminate myself._

A hand on her forearm stopped her, and she turned to meet the piercing gaze of her father. His eyes were intent on hers, clearly searching her for something. A moment of recognition passed through them, and Bra felt for the first time since coming here that her father actually _saw_ her. Without a word, he let her go. As she nearly ran out of the room, she could feel him watching her retreat.


	15. Chapter 14: Found

**AN:** The super long delay between this and the previous chapter was not intentional. Unfortunately this just kept getting put on the backburner since I was still thinking through it. This was actually a really hard chapter to get pinned down. There's so many ways the story could go at this point and still get to where I want it to end, so it was hard to figure out the right angles to approach it from. I rewrote huge chunks of it a couple times too. Darn you Vegeta! Why must you be so hard to portray!

Someone mentioned being confused about current ages. Just in case it was unclear (and it probably wasn't – I think I changed my mind about their ages about halfway through), Bra is currently 30 ish and Trunks is 40 ish. Bra can pass for younger since she got that lovely Saiyan ability to age slowly.

As always, sorry for the delay and enjoy.

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 14: Found**

Bra managed to make it back to the lab before she started hyperventilating. She closed the heavy doors behind her and leaned against them for support, safe in her refuge to just... breakdown, apparently, because she realized some time later that she was shaking heavily, arms crossed around herself protectively. She wiped at tears long dried but still evident on her cheeks. Blood stuck under her nails, both her own dark red and the foreign black, staring back at her.

And the device still clutched in her hand where it'd been since she'd grabbed it from her father.

Mechanically, she forced herself back to her feet. With a disinterest that she had perfected over the years, she ignored everything around her. She went completely on autopilot, a mental barrier going up between now and the events of the past day. Yes, she would have to work through this. But right now she just could not handle it.

It took some concentration to actually get her hand to let go of the device. A paranoia about what would happen made her fingers seize up and it took considerable effort to calm down enough to put it back on the work station she'd set up. Almost as much effort to turn away and walk to the sink in the corner.

A week ago, she might have waited until everyone was asleep and gone back to her mother's office to shower. But she couldn't, just _couldn't_ imagine leaving this room. This was the only sanctuary she had left, and it was only a matter of time before they came to "talk."

Of all the "talks" she'd dreaded having with her parents over the years, this one would probably top the list. Sure, there was the awkward offhand comment her father had made when she was thirteen that she should "hold on to her virginity as long as possible" (she'd been stunned by the absurdity and the bluntness at the time). The way her mother had told her to "do a better time of disguising her assets" at business meetings. But this… this was in a whole new ball park.

But the barrier went up again and she let her mind pull the distraction away. Not now. Now was just about cleaning up.

So she scrubbed and scrubbed and _scrubbed _all the dirt and blood off at the damnably small sink meant for cleaning beakers. Everything not covered by bandages, and then, because she didn't want to smell it, didn't want to _think_ about blood anymore, she pulled those off and scrubbed there too. She pushed hard into her skin and was sure new bruises were forming but didn't care. Every sign of what had happened, every little trace that showed she was now a killer needed to _go_.

She pulled off the tattered remains of her clothes, stained to near unrecognizable colors, and cleaned them with equal fervor. They smelled of battle, death, failure, and vaguely like Trunks. She didn't want any of that reminding her of what had happened. Didn't want to think about how she'd been so close to having this all behind her – she'd actually _been_ back-

And the barrier was up again, choking off the hysterical, desperate thought.

When she was done, she just stared off into space for a while. She couldn't make any forward progress towards getting home, but it seemed like the only way to stop her from spiraling backward, screaming and coming apart altogether.

_So this is what insanity feels like, _she mused.

She didn't consciously register when she got back to work. It wasn't until she'd found a pair of tweezers to gingerly remove the case on the alien tech she'd found earlier (she carefully avoided adding that she'd removed it from the dead man's body) that she came back to herself. A slight nod and confused blink were all that marked the return from autopilot.

Bra ran diagnostic after diagnostic both on the new tech and her own model of the device. Very likely she could work with what she'd already built to get home – permanently this time. But she hoped and prayed that she'd be able to find something to speed up the process. If she had her way, she'd be out of here within 72 hours.

Of course, she had no idea what she'd find on the other end of three decades…

* * *

><p>She dreamed dreams painted in red and blue and black. The screams of her friends and family and occasionally her own punctuated the air as she fought until she was bruised and so utterly broken – just <em>broken<em> – that it didn't matter anymore. Until the only word left that she knew was _please_.

There was an overwhelming terror and anguish in everything she saw, but she could never piece together _what_ she was seeing. She was in a world that didn't make sense. Where the people were blue and her friends were bleeding and laughter was the only thing that met her pleas. Nothing belonged where it should and eventually she came to the conclusion that _she_ was what belonged least of all…

But that thought was hardly comforting as they snapped her friends neck, hollow black eyes staring straight through her…

"NO!" she screamed. Her vision slowly came to her, dots of white and black slipping away to reveal the lab. No blood, no dead friends, no nightmares anymore.

Just the outline of her father's form across the dark. She was still too asleep, to confused to understand why that thought wasn't as comforting as it would otherwise be.

"Who's Pan?"

Her hand still clutching her chest and her heart still racing, she managed a reply between panting breaths, "I think I've endangered enough people's existence for one day, thank you very much."

He let it slide. The space between them was so electric she was afraid to move. A dam was about to break and she didn't know if she could survive the flood.

Low and deep, his voice rung out in an accusing staccato. "You should have told me."

_If you were who you were supposed to be, I would have_. But now she was awake enough to know better. Her heartbeat had slowed and her head was back in the game. No nightmares to let her get away with screaming out in the night.

Not that she was calm enough to not sound ticked off.

"And why should I? What possible motivation could I have had?"

"I'm your father."

Their eyes met. His even but searching. Hers suspicious. A little angry. Maybe not at him, but he was as good a target as any. No, she decided, she would not make this easy on him.

She knew he was fishing. She knew him well enough to hear the bluff. But she couldn't blame him for trying. After all, he didn't know she could read him so well. "My father doesn't point random weapons at people and fire," she said before pointedly standing and turning her back on him as she moved to a work bench.

He considered briefly before crossing his arms across his chest. "Well, it wasn't a weapon now, was it?"

She snorted slightly. "Yeah right, as if you _knew_ that." _Whatever helps you sleep at night, Dad._

"I won't kill you now," he offered. A surprisingly generous offer, considering the man he currently was, but it meant next to nothing to her. Everything that she actually gave a damn about was quietly slipping through her fingers.

Bra tossed aside the scanner she'd been fiddling with and finally turned back to face him. "While that's truly comforting," and she hoped the sarcasm wasn't too overdone, "I don't exactly trust you. You _did_ try to kill me, whether or not you were actually successful at it is somewhat beside the point."

Something in the way she said it made him chuckle slightly. She could hardly tell what he found so amusing about this, and he surprised her again by saying, "I _am_ your father." More confident this time. He was starting to believe it.

"No, _you _aren't," she said, and almost laughed at the look on his face. She shifted her gaze to somewhere on the floor between them, not sure she would like his reaction to the next part. "Look, you might be… someday… But you... you just aren't _you_ right now."

The silence rose between them again. She wondered if he would leave, unsure what he could want from her. Bra was more than willing to stew in her own loneliness and homesickness. It was hard to describe the hole inside her caused by both being at home and with the people she loved, but at the same time being decades removed from them. Being near her family was both comforting but painful. She really meant it when she said this man wasn't her father. He was close, but nowhere near as good as the real thing.

"I can't say I like what you represent," Vegeta finally said. She blinked in surprise at the interruption. She'd almost forgotten he was there. "You are the embodiment of a life I haven't quite reconciled myself to. Your very existence suggests much."

Staying on Earth. Staying with Bulma. Letting himself love her. Maybe even being happy, or at least content, with where his life ended up. Yes. Bra was the end result of these decisions. The final chain tying him to a planet he currently wasn't sure he could do more than tolerate.

Bra struggled to find words. How was she to react to this? It wasn't as bad as getting blown back in time (twice), but that hadn't hurt quite like this. The very real implication that he didn't wish for her to be born was a heavy burden on top of the ones she already carried.

For possibly the first time in her life, Bra Brief Vegeta was stunned silent.

When he saw she couldn't answer, he continued. "You belong with your family." Translation: I'd be more comfortable if you were gone. Albeit, he was getting better at not seeming like an ass to her.

"My family doesn't exist yet." _Probably never will, now._

He snorted slightly. "Thought you'd be more like your mother."

She scowled at him, not sure if he had meant to insult her. Generally if one parent said they were like the other, it was not complementary.

"Eternal optimist," he clarified. His voice held no amusement, but his eyes almost lit up the way they always did when he teased her.

Almost.

"What is it you _want_ from me?" she bit out. This was torture. This whole fucking situation was an example of how to beat the fight out of her. She couldn't _do_ this anymore. She'd been emotionally spent _before_ her father had basically _accused_ her of being born. Like it was some sort of crime to be who she was.

No. She needed him to just fucking _say_ what he wanted and then leave her in peace. Or as close to peace as she was going to get.

Vegeta's eyes narrowed slightly at the outburst. "Close your eyes." He stared menacingly at her until she did as she was told. When he was convinced she'd done so, he asked, "What's wrong girl?"

"You're-"

"No." Her eyes started to blink open but he hissed a terse, "Keep them closed!" She felt like a child being scolded. It took her a second to realize that's probably how he wanted her to feel.

"What's wrong girl?" The edge had left his voice. Just that small hint of concern that somehow leaked through when there was something wrong – _really_ wrong – with her or Trunks.

Bra sighed slightly. Memories of telling her problems to her father, the real one that she knew loved her but wouldn't ever say it, pulled at the edges of her mind. Even though this wasn't right, with her eyes closed and just the sound of his breathing and the familiar sense of his ki, it became really easy to pretend. Easy to let this one piece of home mask how far from it she really was.

"I want to go home." She tried not to let her voice shake, but in the moment she'd created in her mind, it was hard not to let it quiver slightly.

"Then go home."

"Daddy, I want to-" she bit her tongue when she realized what she'd said. But there was no protest, no sharp intake of breath to tell her it had been unwelcome. She swallowed hard. "I'm trying."

"Try harder."

A growl rumbled deep in her throat. "It doesn't work like that."

"Hmph. Your mother and grandfather must be the only ones in the family with any brains-"

"Clearly didn't inherit any from you," she mumbled.

"THEY would have at least come up with _something_ by now."

"Didn't you notice how I built a device that has the impressive ability to send people _into _the future?"

"It hardly counts as 'impressive' if they don't _stay_ there."

Childishly she just scowls, crossing her arms over her shoulders. Her eyes are still closed but she can easily imagine how he looks staring back at her across the room. But in her mind he's shifted slightly. Hair and clothes different, more familiar. His stance almost the same as now, but not as stiff. The look in his eyes challenging without being demanding and intrusive. Yes, it'd be easy to have this conversation with that man.

"Find a way home, girl."

"What if I can't?"

Bra can almost feel his frown. "That's not an option."

And just like that the illusion is broken. It's not a motivational speech hidden behind dripping sarcasm. It's a ploy being used by a man who wants nothing to do with her. Wants her to vanish out of whatever time paradox she crawled out of. "What do you want from me?" she whispered.

"I don't know," he admitted.

When her eyes fluttered open to meet his, she found herself alone.


	16. Chapter 15: Adrift

**AN: **Wow… long time since I've updated this story, for which I apologize. These last two chapters are going to be somewhat hard. Starting and ending stories is one of my week points. So much to bring together and set right before you can call it "done." With that in mind, I suspect there will be one more chapter and an epilogue. As always, tell me what you think and enjoy.**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 15: Adrift**

Cabin fever didn't start to set in until a little past mid morning. Staying in a lab had never bothered Bra before, but she'd always had the opportunity to _leave_ if she wanted to. Now her self-imposed imprisonment was driving her crazy. Pacing didn't help. Clicking the bottom of her pen repeatedly worked until she went so fast the damn thing flew to pieces in her hand. And staring at the damn schematics for the alien tech was _definitely_ not helping.

What was really slowing her down was her parents.

Surprise surprise, her father was keeping his distance. She could feel his ki rise and fall as he pummeled the hell out of the training bots her mother was no doubt going to be replacing soon. But for once, he did not seem to leave the Gravity Chamber. Day in, day out, he didn't leave to sleep or take his meals or spend time with Trunks. She felt somewhat bad about that last part, but she couldn't care less about any mental anguish suffered by Vegeta.

They had each upset the other and, worse, they both knew it and couldn't do a damn thing about it. It was clear neither could or wanted to comfort the other. Hell, pretending the problem didn't exist was a time-honored tradition when the father–daughter pair were fighting (even if said father didn't know it yet). The only difference was now, Bra knew there'd be no mending of bridges. They'd washed their hands of each other in this timeline.

Her mother had been coming on a semi-regular schedule to the lab, no doubt wanting to talk. Not sure she could take _both_ parents rejecting her, Bra had taken to climbing out the window and hiding on the roof until her mother gave up and left. The first few times had lost her no more than an hour between them, but apparently Bulma wasn't satisfied with an empty lab and was more than content to wait. Bra actually feel asleep once when her mother actually stayed over three hours waiting.

"Can't you just take the hint," she muttered as she shimmied back through the window.

Even without the interruptions, it'd taken her half a day to crack the language on the little mystery gadget she'd picked up (add it to the list of times she wished Trunks were there to help). The translation barely helped – half the data files were corrupted and what was left read either like a diary or a technical manual, except with an odd grammatical structure and random incomprehensible words in a foreign script.

Her frustration built to a fevered pitch, eventually exploding in golden locks and green eyes. When Bra finally got a hold of herself, a crumpled bookshelf with smoldering spare parts and a fist-shaped crater in the cement flooring spoke for themselves. Slowly, she powered down. Last thing she wanted was to get her father's attention.

The distorted reflection staring back at her from the metal cabinets, crazed blue eyes and grimy brown hair and all, sparked a sudden impulse.

She just needed a problem she could solve. And chemicals she knew. Boy did she know chemicals.

Bra sat there probably a good twenty minutes, ringing her hair – newly restored to its original blue green hue – dry. It was strangely relaxing and therapeutic. Like she was slowly becoming herself again. Now if only the timeline would cooperate as easily as her hair had.

* * *

><p>After that Bra gave it another couple days before she finally decided she'd let her mother say whatever it was she wanted to say. She was close enough to leaving. The distraction wouldn't matter and she figured she owed her mother the closure.<p>

Especially since she suspected her role in this timeline was done for good.

It wasn't until nearly midnight that she felt the approach of her mother's ki. A few more hours and she might have missed her chance altogether…

Bra busied herself with the final blueprints for the circuitry. Always good to have a distraction when there was a possible confrontation coming. Somewhere to look besides their eyes or your feet.

There was a timid knock before the door swung open, sticking slightly on the abused hinges. "Mind if I come in?"

Bulma froze when her daughter looked up. She'd noticed the resemblance between her and the younger woman more and more since... finding out who she was. But to see basically her mirror image staring back at her was somewhat disconcerting.

"What?"

"I… I didn't realize you had my hair."

Bra snorted. "Don't make too much of it. Goten used to warn Ubu about us. 'Looks like his father, acts like his mother. Looks like her mother, acts like her father.' Good rule of thumb, actually."

Her mother leaned against one of the work stations, awkwardly holding her hands. She could feel eyes tracing her features as Bulma found the now telltale signs of her own face among them. "I didn't realize… you really _didn't_ want us to find out, did you?"

They held eye contact for a moment before Bra was the one to turn away. If that admitted shame on her part, she couldn't say. "No. No I did not."

As expected, the silence that followed was awkward and drawn out. Bra kept sketching, well aware of her mother's presence, but refused to be the one to start this. Last thing she needed was another parent telling her she shouldn't exist. Even if her mom would no doubt be a little… politer about it.

But Bulma seemed to be dreading this conversation as well. Instead of starting off with accusations like her father had, she went for more neutral territory. "Trunks has been asking for you."

Bra winced slightly. Neutral as Trunks was, there was still the undercurrent of accusation. It pained her to abandon her little big brother, but the separation was now necessary. She was leaving sooner rather than later, one way or another. Better for it to be abrupt. "He'll get over it. I've done worse things to him." _He should be so lucky to have me ignore him._

"You two are close?"

"Two peas in a pod." While it was (sort of) true, somehow it rang false even to her own ears. Her voice was dead. She just didn't have it in her to play nice anymore.

"Is he… are he and Vegeta… do they get along?"

Her reply was a strained, "Yes." Trunks Trunks Trunks. An old pang of sibling jealousy rose up in her. Even now, seemingly far removed from any rivalry for their parents' affections, Trunks was coming out ahead. Logically, it made sense for this Bulma to care more about her son that had already been born. Bra being her daughter was something she intellectually knew rather than felt.

Didn't mean Bra was too happy about the reminder.

"Do... do _you_ and your father get along alright? Normally I mean?"

_Ah, so I do exist._ "Yes, usually." Then, slightly mischievously, "When he behaves."

She couldn't help a small smile as she waited for her mom's reaction. "I'm not going to be able to understand your family dynamics, am I?"

"Nothing to understand. Trunks and Dad get along so long as they're sparing, eating, or not around each other for more than a couple hours. Too much Saiyan testosterone or something. You and Trunks get along as long as you don't talk about work. Trunks and I love and hate each other like any other brother and sister who have to work together. Dad and I get along unless he's trying to tell me what to do. You and I get along as long as _you're_ not trying to tell me what to do." She hoped the message was clear enough.

Bulma bit her lip. Mothering a young son was much different from a grown woman. They were nearly the same age at this moment, and it wasn't fair to Bulma to ask her to fill the role Bra expected of her. As far as she could tell, this woman was her mother in all the ways Vegeta _wasn't_ her father yet. But Bra was still a stranger, even if that stranger had a familiar face. "I wish you had come to us sooner with this."

"Yeah, I've been getting that a lot lately."

Slowly, as if approaching a dangerous animal, Bulma took a seat on the other side of the table. It reminded Bra of how she dealt with her father when he was in a mood.

"You told my father, didn't you?" Bulma asked. More attempts at neutral territory. Clever.

Bra shrugged. "Gramps seemed like a safe bet at the time. And he's proven to be that way. You've known a total of how many hours and you're already prying? And how much did it take to convince you I am who I am? The old man took me at my word and didn't press for more than I could give." She glared at her mother and crossed her arms defiantly. "Given the choice, I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

To her surprise, Bulma didn't nag about any of the things she'd expected.

"'_The old man'? You sound like your father."_

"_We're your parents, we deserved to know."_

"_What you've been doing is dangerous. You can't do this alone."_

"_You lead an aggressive alien _to our home_ and didn't think it was worth mentioning to us?"_

Hell, the argument pretty much wrote itself. But instead, it was a quiet, "I guess I can understand why you did what you did."

Bra blinked once or twice. Yes, that was in fact her mother. No, she was not getting chewed out. Maybe this was a dream. "Come again?"

"You were in a tough place. I get why you felt you had to go it alone. Really. Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with the choices you made, but I can understand them."

Bra narrowed her eyes. Was Bulma Brief _condoning_ keeping her out of the loop? Bull fucking shit. "I don't know _what_ you're trying to do," she growled, voice dangerously low. "But you need to stop fucking around and just say what you goddamn mean or get the hell out. Don't play friends, don't try any mindgames. Just spit it out."

She half expected her mother to apologize. Another part figured she really _would _get that argument after all. Bulma might encourage her kids to be independent and stick up for themselves, but she damn well didn't tolerate them cursing at her.

"Well..." Too hesitant. Afraid, terrified, maybe, of what she'd been thinking. That had Bra's attention. "I was thinking that... that maybe… this is how things were always _supposed_ to go."

_Oh._

"Mom, I don't really think-"

"Let me finish," she said, coloring slightly at being called 'mom.' "Maybe... maybe this is just how things went and you didn't know. This... I mean, this could be what made Vege... your father realize that this was where he belonged."

Bra looked at her mother, her doubt so obvious it didn't need words to be expressed. "That man is not ready to be the man he should be."

"And odd as this sounds, that gives me hope."

"... Run that by me again?"

Bulma sighed, her hands drifting to her lap and her eyes following them. "The Vegeta from your time. You make him sound like he's..." she was at a loss to describe it.

"An honorable man? A caring husband? A good father?" Bra offered. She was tempted to add "like a brother to Goku," but she had a feeling that would be a little too far-fetched right now. Maybe if this were after Buu...

"Yes," Bulma said simply. "And I know my... this Vegeta's not ready for those things. But until you came here, I wasn't sure he _ever_ would be." She looked up at her daughter, her mirror image but for the dark lines under her eyes and the arch of her eyebrows that was just _so_ Vegeta. "But the fact that you'll be born lets me know that eventually, he'll get there. When he's ready."

Bra didn't have the heart to add, _But now I probably _won't_ be born._

The silence dragged out and she wondered if she was doomed to have these awkward conversations with absolutely _everyone._ Who was next – Chichi with questions about Gohan's education and future career? Krillin asking about 18? Yamcha wanting to know the next Powerball lottery numbers? Dende, just kill her now if that was the case.

"You look just like him you know."

Bra blushed profusely. She realized she was a lot _like_ her father personality-wise, but the idea that she looked like him was foreign to her.

"I don't mean your features. Just the way... I don't know. The way you use them, if that makes any sense. Now it seems so obvious that he's a part of you, I wonder how I was ever blind enough not to see it." She gestured towards the dented floor and broken shelving. "You've got his temper too, eh?"

She sighed deeply. "Yeah." Yeah, she was her father's daughter all right. Even if he didn't want her to be.

_Just leave, Mom. Please just go. I cannot handle this shit any more. One parent hating me and the other wanting me just because of what I _represent. _Not because of _me_. Is this all I ever was to them?_

That little voice inside her, somewhere in between her father's and her brother's, the one that always coached her through the hard stuff, tried to assert itself. _Don't act like these are really your parents. They're not like that._

Maybe that would have worked a month ago. Hell, maybe even last week. But somewhere along the way, she'd grown out of believing it.

_Like it or not, they might not _be_ my parents, but they _were_. They thought this way about me, even if it wasn't "me" specifically, at some point or another. _

"You could stay here, you know."

Simple enough solution. With an undeniable, simple answer.

"No. I can't."

"You could. We're still your family, even if we're not quite used to it yet. It might not be the same, but-"

"This is one of those situations where 'good enough' just isn't. If I'm going to be somewhere I don't belong, I'd rather it be then than now."

"Fair enough."


	17. Chapter 16: Not All Who Wander

**AN: **Aaaand that was a really long break between chapters. I apologize – I had a lot of trouble trying to figure out what I wanted to do with this chapter. There will be one more chapter/epilogue, but I can't make any promises as to when that will be.

* * *

><p><strong>Lost But Found<strong>

**Chapter 16: Not All Who Wander**

She had spent the last hour just staring at the device. All of her effort, her struggles and frustration, gone into making this thing, and now that it was done - really, finally truly done - she was too chicken shit to use it.

The idea of what type of future waited for her was scary. Not the facing her parents when they were angry kind of scary, or even fighting for her life scary. This was like taking a deep breath for a dive and not knowing if you'd have enough air to make it where you needed to. What would the world be on the other side of forty years?

Would she still have a place in it?

In the end, it wasn't fear of the future that made her get to her feet. It was instead how painful the idea of staying in this time.

Bra packed together what little she had into her backpack. Tidied up what she could in the lab. Took five deep breaths to calm herself down, as little good as they did her. But she was focused again. Ready to move forward.

Before she pulled the trigger, she placed a small timer on the work station. She couldn't explain why she was doing this, but on a whim she'd built the damn thing and painstakingly set the years, months, and days. She'd even gone so far as to figure out the hours and minutes. And just to fuck with them, she'd thrown in a few seconds.

When her parents came to look for her, as she assumed they'd have to eventually, she had no idea what they would think or feel knowing she was gone. Knowing this timer, already counting down, was all she'd left behind. Would they look forward to seeing her again? And would it be in forty years when she showed up in the year she knew, or would they see her when she was born in ten years?

The last thing she remembered seeing was the timer ticking down the years.

* * *

><p>Maybe she was a coward.<p>

"Home" had been her guiding star the last few weeks. Now it was the only place she wouldn't go. But as she saw it, with the whole expanse of human history at her fingertips, who was she to resist the temptation?

On her first trip, an ancient Greek town mistook her for a goddess. She had no reason to correct them.

She walked the plains of North America before any other human had the chance, losing track of how many buffalo she saw before she could count past five hundred.

She had an affair with a French prince - handsome and gentile and completely taken with her. He'd proposed to her and she'd felt bad for laughing in his face. He'd blushed, indignant, and said he could have made her a princess. A gentle pat on the shoulder as she explained she already was.

Einstein's ideas on relativity were much more eloquent when she heard them in person. She resisted asking him on his theories of time travel.

Simply because it would make Trunks jealous, she saw every Star Wars movie on opening night. She decided to save the ticket stubs for him.

Back and forth, she visited every moment in history that called to her. Sometimes she was tempted to interfere, to save a stranded family as Vesuvius erupted around them or to warn a young woman not to board the Titanic. But she always stopped herself, acting in ways she felt wouldn't change the world too much.

When she grew homesick, she jumped forward. Curiosity brought her to her mother's childhood. It was heartwarming to see the bond between her and Goku grow, though she could hardly believe that the scrawny kid with the wild hair would become the most powerful person alive.

A darker desire to see her father as he _had_ been brought her to when he first landed on Earth. She kept her ki low and just watched. Even now, she wasn't sure how she felt about it. The only opinion she could commit to was wondering how her mother could have ever seen through this man to the better man beneath.

In a café in West City, she sipped on her latte while Mirai Trunks tried not to stare. They compared notes on being Briefs children displaced in time. It was hardly a surprise the shared grievances they had about their father, though this Trunks had no basis for comparison. He sympathized with her loss, she with his, but the silence that eventually settled over them was uncomfortable. She couldn't become his sister after one meal, and he couldn't replace the brother she'd known thirty years.

She hugged him good-bye and wished him luck in his time as she decided it was time to head back to hers.

* * *

><p>All in all, she figured she was gone a solid year when she rematerialized outside the compound. The sun was setting – or rising, she couldn't really tell – as she walked into the house.<p>

"You're late."

Her body immediately tensed at the sound of his gruff voice. As if caught doing something bad, she slowly met Vegeta's eyes.

Now this man, _this_ man she knew. Hair the way it'd been since she was young. Clothes that were much more familiar to her. Eyes that not only recognized her but held so much suppressed emotion that it was endearing and comforting.

"I would've been here earlier if _someone_ hadn't interfered." It had been intended as a joke, but it came out harsher than she meant it to. Yet she found she didn't regret being rude - it might be be forty years for him since it all happened, but the sting of her father's rejection was still relatively fresh in her mind.

She got barely more than a _hmmph _before the next accusation. "You lied."

"About what...?"

He threw something at her too fast for her to see what it was. She caught it out of the air on reflex, but when she finally got a look at it, she couldn't help the lop-sided smile. "Did it really go off on my birthday?" she asked, absentmindedly tossing the timer back and forth between her hands.

"Yes," Vegeta replied sharply. "When you turned five."

This time she laughed at the look on his face. Annoyed as he obviously was, this conversation brought a sense of comfort and familiarity.

"I fail to see what is so funny, girl." Even without seeing him in a while, she could tell he was at least in part amused. "You said you were five years younger than you are. You were… earlier than we expected."

She'd left the timer as a reminder of where she came from. It had counted down 15 years, 4 months, 3 days, 10 hours and 11 minutes from the moment she started it. She knew when her parents found it, they'd think it was set to go off on the day she was born. And it did. But as her own form of insurance, she'd had it go off five years too late.

She crossed her arms, mirroring him except for the slight smirk on her face. "Well, I was under the impression that every Saiyan born on this planet had been a complete accident. Why should I be any different?"

He raised an eyebrow at that.

"What? Oh c'mon, Gohan was too. Chichi might have known what she was doing but there's no way Goku would've been able to connect the dots." Having seen him as a child had in her eyes confirmed this long held belief.

There was amusement in his eyes and she could tell he wanted to add something to this, but he pointed a finger at her accusingly. "Do not change the subject."

Her shoulders slumped slightly under his scrutiny. "What did you want me to do? Announce my potential birth for the whole world? I wanted you guys to know I was still a possibility, but not have you guys… I don't know, freak out or something as it got closer and closer to zero. I figured if it went off _after_ I was born…" She shrugged. "Besides, it's not like I _said_ I'd be born when the timer went off."

"You knew the assumptions we'd make." Her smile was teasing, but he kept his tone serious. "You nearly gave your mother a heart attack when she found out she was having you."

"Well, _you_ nearly killed me, so I feel like we should call it a wash."

His eyed narrowed slightly. She thought he might keep scolding her, but instead he merely commented, "You're older." It was half accusation, half question.

"You can't possibly remember what I looked like thirty years ago," she said dismissively, but all the same she turned away and pretended to go through the fridge, hoping to obscure his view of her.

"I may have seen you thirty years ago and I also saw you last bloody week, girl. Do not take me for a fool."

Oh, right. Crap.

She ran a hand through her hair before sighing. "Look, I had some stuff on my plate. I didn't want to try coming back here until I had sorted through it." _Until I could handle what might be here._

"So you went gallivanting throughout the timeline instead of coming home?"

It's not until she reads the underlying annoyance in his voice that it hits her.

Her mouth started to drop open in disbelief but she caught herself. "You... you knew the _entire_ time. My whole _life_ you knew and you didn't even tell me!"

"I trained you your whole life specifically for that fight."

"Ugh!" She threw her hands up in annoyance. All that work to avoid them and apparently things ended up the same regardless.

Her father just shrugged, almost smug. "You wanted to still be born, I don't see why you would be _upset_ that you were."

"I spent _weeks_ freaking out about that when all it would've taken is you or Mom or like… I don't know… _anyone_ leaving me some sort of clue that, 'Hey, if you ever end up in the past, don't freak out too much because you're totally going to be fine and still be born and and and…'" She was aware that her arms had been waving around with increasing energy and as she abruptly ran out of energy, she found she could barely breathe. Instead she just let the rest of her annoyance out with a huff as she collapsed into the closest chair. "Seriously, though," she said, rubbing at the migraine building in her left temple, "A head's up would have been nice."

"And missed that wonderful speech?" She glared at him but found his returning smile barely mocking. "Princess, if you'd _known_ things would be okay, would you have taken all the precautions you did?"

Bra considered a moment. "No, I guess not..."

"Then do not be upset that we took our own. You're not the _only_ one who wanted to make sure you were born."

Silence reigned as they both brooded over what the other had said. All in all, she wasn't terribly surprised when her father turned to leave first. "Your brother will want to see you. We may have neglected to inform him where you've been the last week."

"Needlessly cruel," she muttered. "I'm seeing a trend."

Vegeta was nearly out of the kitchen when she decided this was the most likely chance she'd ever have to get a straight answer from him. Before he could walk away, she called out. "Daddy?"

"Yes, Princess?"

"Why _did_ you decide to stay?"

He hesitated long enough she thought he wouldn't answer at all. "I used to dread the very notion of having children. I'd been used as a child against my father, and because of my father's weakness…" He trailed off, eyes lost to a world Bra was sure she didn't want to understand. When they cleared and met hers, he seemed in control. "My son killed Frieza and my daughter killed an alien with a higher ki than her own." He shrugged. "I figured if that fear was meaningless, perhaps the others were too."


End file.
